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AN EYE-OPENER. 

"CITATEUR, PAR PIGAULT." 



LE BRUN, 

DOUBTS OF INFIDELS: 



EMBODYING 



THIETY mPOETANT QUESTIONS TO THE CLEEGY. 

AliSO 

PORTY CLOSE QUESTIONS TO THE DOCTORS OF DIVINITY. 



By ZEPA. 






BOSTON: 
WILLIAM WHITE AND COMPANY, 

BANNER OF LIGHT OFFICE, 

158 "Washington Street. 

NEW YORK: — THE AMERICAN NEWS COMPANY, AGENTS, 

119 Nassau Street. 

1871. 



^1-1^ 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, 

By WILLIAM WHITE & CO., 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



William White & Co., Stereotypers and Printers. 



PREFACE 



It is evident, from all past history, that error of 
opinion has been productive of more human misery 
than any other cause. A knowledge of the truth in 
relation to all disputed subjects is most likely to be 
obtained by free and untrammeled discussion, which 
will elicit facts. In an age like the present, when 
superstition and despotism are fa-st receding before 
the light of truth and liberty, we have thought that 
the publication of this work might contribute some- 
what to the glorious result, and would be highly 
acceptable to a liberal community. We have ex- 
amined the subject set forth in these pages, for many 
years, with candor and impartialit}^ We believe that 
we are paying that tribute which every member of 
society owes to his fellow-citizens, by thus endeavor- 
ing to acquaint them with the many reasons why the 
popular systems of religion are unworthy of belief, 
and in calling the attention of the people to the ne- 
cessity of thinking and investigating for themselves 
every subject that is worth having an opinion about. 

COMPILER. 



CONTENTS 



PART FIRST. 

PAGE. 

Introduction 7 

The Old Testament 9 

The Bible and other Sacred Books 24 

The New Testament 34 

History and the Bible 43 

Biblical Contradictions 49 

On the Prophets . 52 

Pagan Mythology 62 

Creation of the World 63 

Jesus Christ 65 

Miracles 75 

Popery 80 

The Priesthood 83 

A Doctor of Divinity Criticised 94 

The Christian and the Heathen 99 

Effects of Believing the Bible 103 

Solomon's Songs 110 



PART SECOND. 

Doubts of Infidels 114 

Questions of Zepa to the Doctors of Divinity. . 133 

Letter to the Clergy , 144 

Scripture Narratives 153 

The Mystical Craft 157 

John Calvin 160 

Michael Servetus 163 

The Passage in Josephua 164 

Wesley's Letter 165 

6 



He that will not reason is a bigot ; he that can not is a fool ; he that 
dares not is a slave." 



IIJfTEODUOTIOE". 



My Friends, — It is high time that the world should be 
called out of the darkness which has covered it through 
ignorant or self-interested teachers, who have been more anx- 
ious to enjoin forms and ceremonies than to imbue the 
people with the Pure Spirit of Religion. 

" Arise,'' Truth ! " and shine, for thy light is come !'' 
Let the people know that the sectarian differences about 
which they have been quarreling are all equally unimpor- 
tant. Let them know that all the doctrines and creeds 
about which men have so wrangled are of human invention, 
and there is nothing divine but the great law of universal 
love. 

Our forefathers saw the beautiful order of nature, and the 
changes of the universe; and their poetical imaginations 
embodied in fables the things they knew with those they 
only conjectured; and, as time rolled on, their descendants 
raised these fables, or poems, into matters of high moment, 
and asserted them to have had a superhuman origin. By 
this deception the priesthood have been enabled to exercise 
a spiritual despotism over the consciences, laws, and desti- 
nies of this great nation. And what is the result ? Are 
our morals pure ? Are all our laws merciful or just? Are 
the people happy ? Alas ! no : nor can the people ever be, 
until they return again into the atmosphere of truth from 
which they have been so long excluded. 

ye whose freeborn spirits have often beat against the 

7 



8 INTRODUCTION. 

prison-bars of Sectarianism and Superstition in whicli you 
have been inclosed, learn, there is nothing too sacred to 
be subjected to the searching eye of Reason : bring your 
beliefs to that test. Think, you that you were created to be 
the slaves of a priestly faction, who govern you by laws not 
founded on equity ; refer you to books whose authors are 
unknown, whose morality is, at the least, extremely ques- 
tionable } who threaten you with eternal misery if you will 
not believe their message, yet will not hear and answer the 
reasons for your unbelief. 

Do you not ask the following very important questions ? 
Whence came the Book which has been held sacred for 
ages ? What principles does it contain ? What are the evi- 
dences of its being the word of Grod ? Have we any need of 
a written revelation of his will ? Since your clergy will 
not answer these questions truthfully, I will do their duty 
for them ; let them controvert my arguments if they can. 
But no : they are conscious of the falsehood of that which 
they teach as truth, and there/ore will not bring it to the test 
of free inquiry. 

But it is not the interest of their congregations to be de- 
ceived; and, if you will but nobly determine to allow your 
reason to be the umpire between human nature and religion, 
the paradise of earth will be half regained. 



THE OLD TESTAMENT. 



We must know who a man is before we can judge whether 
he be inspired or not. Until we become intimately acquainted 
with him, how can we tell whether he is under the influence 
of sound reason or crazy fanaticism ? Whether his integ- 
rity demands confidence or his hypocrisy contempt ? Wheth- 
er he ought to be respected for his goodness, admired for his 
wisdom, or despised for his arrogance, vanity, and blasphemy ? 
As a God of wisdom could never require us to sacrifice our 
reason, or believe where it might be unwise, the existence of 
a single doubt, honestly entertained, respecting a man's being 
inspired, proves him to be an impostor. No emperor would 
commission a man to write his statutes or letters, without 
establishing his authority beyond question ; and God, who 
possesses the highest degree of excellence and wisdom, could 
not be guilty of the grossest inhumanity and folly. 

It is indispensably necessary, therefore, to know who the 
authors of the books ascribed to Moses, Joshua, Samuel, or 
the apostles, are, before we can judge whether they were 
under the influence of inspiration, or ambition ; of wisdom, 
or folly ; of reason, or insanity ; whether they were honest, 
or dishonest ; impostors, or enthusiasts ; robbers, murderers, 
or good men. Now, although it is absolutely necessary to 
become acquainted with their moral and intellectual charac- 
ter in order to ascertain their demands upon our confidence 
and belief, yet th,e age in which they wrote, and their names, 
are involved in an obscurity which none can penetrate. That 
the Books of Moses, Joshua, and Samuel were not written by 
those to whom they are ascribed is a demonstrated fact, sup- 
ported by the strongest testimony. Besides the conclusive 



10 AN EYE-OPENER. 

evidence we shall produce in favor of this proposition, the 
style employed affords strong corroborating testimony. If 
the style intimates any thing, it is that the writers were not 
the actors ; for they nowhere claim to be, and invariably speak 
in the third persoii, and never in the first. It is always the 
Lord said unto them, and they said unto the Lord ; or the 
the people said unto them, and they said unto the people. 
This is not the style of a biographer speaking of his own 
life, but of an historian, speaking of the lives and actions of 
others. Now, as no obvious or intelligent reason can be 
assigned why the}'' spoke in the third person, but many why 
they should in the first, we have indisputable grammatical 
proof that those to whom they have been ascribed were not, 
and could not be, their authors. If they were not, who 
were ? Fanatics, bigots, or impostors ? Or what ? Were 
they composed by the inmates of a mad-house, prison, or a 
brothel? (See Solomon's Songs.) By the victim of super- 
stition, or the tool of ambition? By cut-throats, demons, 
hypocrites, or perjurers ? By whom were they written ? In 
what age, or what country ? None can. tell. How do we 
know, then, that they are inspired ? A fool may believe with- 
out reason, and a fanatic without investigation ; but who but 
a fanatic or a fool will receive assertion without proof, its 
authors unknown, or be convinced without argument. 

It is not only impossible to tell who the authors of certain 
books in the Bible were, whether they were infamous villains, 
blood-thirsty murderers, or vile hypocrites ; or in what period 
or country they wrote ; but it also is extremely doubtful if 
ever such persons had a real existence. They could not 
have lived, and performed the stupendous miracles which are 
ascribed to them without acquiring a celebrity which would 
have immortalized them, in all ancient history. If Moses had 
disenthralled the Israelites from Egyptian bondage, and had 
tortured Pharaoh with such wonderful plagues ; if Joshua's 
fame had been noised abroad throughout all the land, and 
his name became a terror to the surrounding country, and if 
he had arrested the sun in its course ', or if Samuel and the 
apostles had been half so great and supernaturally endowed, 
as they are repiesented, — we would have had as much proof 
of their existence as we have of any general or philosopher. 



THE OLD TESTAMENT. 11 

The profound silence preserved by all ancient historians 
respecting them renders it extremely doubtful that they ever 
lived, and absolutely certain that the magnificent prowess of 
their arms, and the awful grandeur of their character, are 
the fictitious dreams of romantic and visionary writers. 
Why the annals of Egypt record none of the Pharaohs 
mentioned in Grenesis and Exodus, and why no history, ex- 
cept the Bible and those taken from it, celebrate none of those 
daring deeds ascribed to Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and others, 
is a mystery only resolvable by admitting that the whole is a 
forgery, unsupported by plausibility, contradicted by all his- 
tory. 

If the acknowledgments of ancient history had substan- 
tiated the existence of Moses and others, mentioned in the 
Bible, the fact would not have given any more support to 
the pretense that they were under the influence of divine 
inspiration than that Alexander the Grreat or Thomas Paine 
were. Blasphemy, mingled with folly, alone could be guilty 
of the profanity of ascribing the horrid deeds which they are 
said to commit to the orders of a Being transcendently pure 
and infinitely good. If the account related in those books 
which bear their names be correct, of what crimes in the 
black catalogue of infamy have they not been guilty ? They 
stole from and lied to the Egyptians. They made war upon 
the unofiending, and desolated their cities. They butchered 
the defenseless, ripped up women with child, and murdered 
babes, whose innocence could not provoke revenge, and 
whose harmlessness demanded protection. They debauched 
at one time thirty-two thousand virgins, after murdering 
their male relations, and all their female relations who had 
known a man!'/ Noah was a drunkard ; Moses a murderer ; 
David a liar and adulterer • Solomon a fratricide ; Jeremiah 
a herald of a lying king ; and all the holy men of old guilty 
of crimes for which our laws would consign them to the pen- 
itentiary. If the Bible contains a faithful account of their 
lives, what inhuman and bloodthirsty wretches they were ! 
What contempt do they not deserve, and in what abhorrence 
does justice and virtue demand that they should be held ! 

The Old Testament was evidently written after the estab- 
lishment of the Jewish monarchy. From certain passages 



12 AN EYE-OPENER. 

found in tlie books to which the names of Moses, Joshua, 
and Samuel are prefixed, it is plain that those books were 
never written by the persons whose names they bear, nor till 
long after their decease. This fact corroborated by such 
strong and convincing testimony, that none but those who 
are invulnerable to conviction, and who defy the power of 
demonstration, can dispute. A few references will sufficient- 
ly establish the point. 

In Gen. xiv. 14, it -is said, " And when Abraham 
heard that his brother was taken captive, he armed his trained 
servants, born in his house, three hundred and eighteen, and 
pursued them unto Dan.'^ Now, as this passage refers to a 
city called Dan, it cOuld not have been written until after there 
was such a city. If this be admitted, and none but a fanatic 
who denies all reason will controvert it, it proves conclusively 
that the Book of Grenesis was not written until 331 years after 
the death of Moses, as no place called Dan existed before 
that time. Laish, if the Bible be any authority, received the 
name of Dan after the death of Samson. It is said in Judges 
xviii. 27, " that they (the Danites) came unto Laish, — 
a people that were quiet and secure ; and they smote them 
with the edge of the sword, and burned the city with fire : 
and they built a city, and dwelt therein, and called the name 
of it Dan, after the name of Dan their father, howbeit the 
name of the city was Laish at the first." It requires no ordi- 
nary degree of fanaticism and absurdity to resist such strong 
proof as this passage affords, that the Book of Genesis was 
not written by Moses ; nor could it have been until several 
hundred years after his death. 

Another argument showing the preposterousness of at- 
tributing the Book of Genesis to the pen of Moses is afforded 
in the thirty-fifth chapter, twenty-first verse, which says, 
" And Israel journeyed, and spread his tent beyond the tower 
of Edar." The tower of Edar was over the gates of Jerusalem, 
and was not built until the reign of David, which Wcis many 
years after the death of Moses. As the Book of Genesis refers 
to this tower, it shows that its author could not have been Moses, 
but some pretender to inspiration, who lived under the reign 
of some Jewish monarch, many hundred years after the death 
of Moses. Bigotry may assert, ignorance believe, and supersti- 



THE OLD TESTAMENT. 13 

tion venerate the Bible ; but reason will perceive it a fraud, 
and virtue denounce it. 

As strong and conclusive as the foregoing passages are in 
proof that Moses was not the author of the five books as- 
cribed to him, but that they are the evident production of 
some ignorant person, many hundred years after his death ] 
yet we will produce another, still more powerful, if possible, 
in demonstration of these incontrovertible positions. In 
Gen. xxxvi, 31, it is said, " And these are the kings 
which reigned in Edom, before there reigned any king over 
the children of Israel." Now, it is evident, that, as there 
were no kings in Israel during the time of Moses, nor until 
860 years alter his death, and as this book alludes to the 
kings which reigned over Israel, it was written, not by Mo- 
ses, but by some one who lived after the Jewish monarchy 
had been established. The evidence that the five books as- 
cribed to him are a fraud upon society is so clear, that, 
without violating any obligation of charity, we may say that 
those who can not perceive its force must be blinded by 
prejudice, or devoid of common sense. 

That Moses is not the author of the Book of Exodus is 
evident from the following passage : "And the children did 
eat manna until they came to a land inhabited ] they did eat 
manna until they came unto the borders of the land of 
Canaan!" Now, if the Bible tell the truth, Moses died 
in the wilderness ; and the children of Israel continued to 
eat manna (see Josh. v. 12), until Joshua had con- 
ducted them over Jordan, which was some time after Moses 
had been dead and buried. Moses, therefore, could not have 
penned this passage ', because the children of Israel did not 
cease to eat manna during the time of Moses, nor did he 
accompany them to the borders of the land of Canaan. How 
could he who died in the wilderness tell what the children 
of Israel did at the borders of Canaan ? or how could he tell 
how long they ate manna af^er his death ? The absurdity 
of attributing Exodus to Moses is only equaled by its au- 
dacity and disregard of triith. 

The Book of Numbers, so often ascribed to Moses, could 
not have been produced by him, unless he was a man arro- 
gant and vain. In the twelfth chapter, third verse, it says, 



14 AN EYE-OPENER. 

" Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men that 
were upon the face of the earth." Now, what man of modesty or 
good sense would claim to be the meekest man upon the face of 
the earth ? He who did so would prove himself an impostor, 
if not a fool and even a coxcomb ; an impostor, because he 
would claim that, which by claiming, he would show he had 
no right to ; a fool, because he would arrogate absurdities 
which would secure the contempt of the enlightened and 
wise ; a conceited coxcomb; because he showed himself puffed 
up with vanity and nonsense. If Moses was the authoi 
of Numbers, then he was an impostor, &c. ; but, as none will 
contend for this, all who are influenced by reason will admit 
that he was not the author of the book ascribed to him by 
priests. 

Whatever bigotry may proclaim, infatuation believe, or 
superstition venerate, respecting the five books of Moses, 
reason shows that they are a fraud upon mankind. None can 
examine them, upon the principles of philosophical investi- 
gation, without perceiving that they were never penned by 
Moses. The following passage is another proof of this unde- 
niable fact : " Lo ! Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there 
in the land of Moab, over against Beth-peor ; but no man 
knoweth of his sepulchre until this day. And Moses was an 
hundred and twenty years old when he died : his eye was 
not dim, nor his natural force abated " (Deut. xxxiv. 5). 
It would ba insulting a man of common sense to give a 
reason why this book could not have been written by Moses ; 
and the fanatic, whose argument is the assertion of ignorant 
priests, could not perceive, or if he did, would not acknowl- 
edge, the force of any argument which might be adduced. 

The writings ascribed to Joshua, like those ignorantly at- 
tributed to Moses, were not written until a long time after his 
death. In the twenty-fourth chapter, thirty-first verse, it is 
said, " And Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, 
and all the days of the elders that outlived Joshua." Now, 
how could Joshua be the author of' a book which describes what 
Israel had done, not only during all the days of his life, but also 
during the lifetime of ail the elders who outlived him ? The idea 
is too absurd and self-contradictory for any man of common 
sense to admit. The fool who has no reason, the bigot who will 



THE OLD TESTAMENT. 15 

not exercise it, and the fanatic who dare not, may establish 
their true character by believing this absurdity, or any other, 
however disgraceful or revolting ; but no man who is not the 
slave of priestcraft or the dupe of artful hypocrites can vilify 
his character by its adoption. 

f The writer of the Book of Joshua, after giving an account 
of the sun standing still, says, '' And there was no day like 
that, before it nor afrerit, that the Lord hearkened to the voice 
of man " (tenth chapter, fourteenth verse.) Now, it requires 
no greater degree of sense than that which prevents a man from 
being considered a fool, to perceive that the author of this 
book lived many years after Joshua is said to have commanded 
the sun to stand still ; for he says there was no day like that 
after it. Did he mean to say that the following day, or week, 
or year, was not like it ? or that hundreds of years had passed 
away without witnessing the sun standing still a second time ? 
If he meant the former, he either ridiculed the absurdity, or 
he proved himself an ignorant, crazy, dreaming fanatic, who 
had the folly to assert that the sun often stood still. But, if 
he meant the latter, it shows that the author was not Joshua, 
but some one who lived many years after his death. 

The phrase, " unto this day," occurring frequently in the 
Book of Joshua, shows that the author did not assume to be 
contemporary with the event, but that he lived after the time 
it was supposed to have happened. The following passages 
prove this point : " And Joshua burned the city, and made 
it a heap forever, a desolation unto this da?/." " And it came 
to pass, at the time of the going down of the sun, that Joshua 
commanded, and they took them (five kings) down out of the 
trees, and cast them into the cave wherein they had been hid, 
and laid great stones in the cave's mouth, which remain unto 
this very day " (Josh. x. 27). " As for the Jebusites, the 
inhabitants of Jerusalem, the children of Judah could not 
drive them out ) but tha Jebusites dwell with the children of 
Judah unto this day " (Josh. xv. 63) . The expression " un : ) 
this day," in these passages, means a lapse of many 
hundred years. When he speaks, in the first verse, of a city 
being burnt, or, in the second, of five kings being buried in 
a cave, he evidently refers to events which happened long 
before his day, and respecting the actual occurrence of which 



16 AN EYE-OPENER. 

such strong suspicions were liable to be entertained as made 
it necessary to support liis statement by a reference to what 
he considered the remains of the city, and the stone of the 
cave. Such phraseology would have been unmeaning and 
inadmissible, were the writer contemporary with the event. 
The last verse refers to the Jebusites dwelling with the 
children of Israel, an event which did not take place until 
the time of David, which was three hundred and seventy 
years after the death of Joshua. It is a demonstrated fact, 
that the Book of Joshua was not written, and could not be, 
until after the establishment of the Jewish monarchy. 

The Book of Judges bears the same internal, conclusive 
evidence that it was written under the reign of some Jewish 
king. In the first chapter, eighth verse, it says, " Now 
the children of Israel had fought against Jerusalem, and 
taken it." Jerusalem, if the Bible be worthy of credit, was 
not taken until the reign of David ; consequently this book 
could not be written until that period. 

The two books ascribed to Samuel by their title-page 
could never have been written by him. In the first chap- 
ter, ninth verse, it says, " Before time, in Israel, when a 
man went to inquire of God, thus he spake, ' Come, let us go 
to the seer ' ; for he that is now called a prophet was before 
time called a seer " This is positive and undeniable proof 
that the writer of the First Book of Samuel lived long after 
Samuel's death. He explains a custom observed, and the 
meaning of a word in general use, in the time of Samuel, 
which had become obsolete in the age in which the writer 
lived ; and consequently many years, and perhaps ages, in- 
tervened between the two. Besides this, the first book ex- 
tends beyond the lifetime of Samuel ; and the second com- 
mences four years after his death. What absurdity, to think 
he could have written an account of his death, his resurrec- 
tion by a witch, and the history of his nation until the reign 
of David ! 

As the Old Testament was apparently forged under some 
Jewish king, we will now point out who that king was. 
Hezekiah, the great-grandfather of Josiah, according to the 
account given in the latter part of 2 Chronicles, destroyei^ 
in his kingdom every remnant of idolatry, and not only en- 



THE OLD TESTAMENT. 17 

couraged the rigid observance of tlie Jewish rites by his 
practice, but enforced them by law. Upon his decease, Ma- 
nasseh, his son, inherited the throne; but, dissatisfied with 
the religion which his father, during a reign of fifty-five 
jrears, had established, entirely subverted it, and substituted 
the worship of pagan neighbors. The succeeding king was 
Amos, who, imbibing the religious principles of his father, 
confirmed the system which he had introduced. After a 
short reign of two years, he died ; and the government de- 
volved upon Josiah, his son, a boy eight years old, who 
reigned in his stead. Immediately upon his accession to the 
throne, Josiah did that which was right in the sight of the 
Lord. Under the influence of priests, at twelve years old 
he commenced purging the temple and destroying the im- 
ages of idolatry. With the zeal of a bigot and the fury of a 
fanatic, he ground the groves, the carved images, and the 
molten images to dust, and strewed them on the graves of 
those who sacrificed to them, and burnt the bones of priests 
upon the altars where they had officiated. So violent and 
bitter was his persecution against all whose religious senti- 
ments were difierent from his own, that he carried it to the 
full extent of his power. In the eighteenth year of his 
reign, he directed Hilkiah, Joah, and Shaphan the scribe, to 
repair the temple. While prosecuting this command, Hil- 
kiah gave Shaphan a book, which he said he had found in 
the temple, which contained the law of the Lord given 
by Moses. Shaphan went to the king, and related what had 
occurred in the temple, who tore his clothes to pieces, and 
ordered him, with others, to go and inquire of the Lord for 
him. Accordingly they went to Hildah, a prophetess, who, 
in reply to their interrogations, told them that the curses 
written in the book which they had read before the king of 
Judah should be brought upon the inhabitants ; but, because 
Josiah's heart was tender, and he humbled himself, he should 
be gathered to his fathers in peace. After they had returned, 
and communicated to Josiah the answer of the prophetess, 
he entered into covenant with all the people, to observe the 
commandments of Moses. He then kept the feast of the 
Passover in a manner never known since the time of Samuel. 
This tale of finding the Bible, related upon its own au- 



18/ AN EYE-OPENER. 

thority, involves such ridiculous absurdities, that it would be 
insulting common sense and stigmatizing human reason, to 
suppose any man who did not level himself with brutes by 
giving up reason, capable of believing it The Bible is a 
book of laws, by which the Jewish nation was governed; 
and, regarding it as a sacred legacy from heaven, they read 
its pages with veneration and awe, and cherished them with 
respect and devotion. They memorized its precepts, rigidly 
observed its rights, instructed their children in its require- 
ments, and regarded the slightest innovation as invoking the 
curses of heaven. In obedience to its commands, they had 
desolated the surrounding country; for it they had fought 
and bled, conquered and been conquered, lived and died. 
Its ceremonies commemorated the most illustrious periods of 
their history ; its rites pointed out the method, and insured 
the salvation of their nation ; its precepts contained the ele- 
ments of their triumphs, the prosperity, existence, and per- 
petuation of their nation. It elevated them above, and dis- 
tinguished them from, all other kingdoms. It formed the 
substance of their worship, the matter of their poets, and 
the theme of their historians. Yet the same book which as- 
sures us that the Jews cherished this deep veneration for the 
Bible declares positively, that, though in the reign of Heze- 
kiah, the law was strictly obeyed, and all the ceremonies ob- 
served, yet at the time of Josiah, fifty-seven years afterwards, 
the king, the priest, the people, had forgotten there ever was 
a Bible ! forgotten the laws by which they had been gov- 
erned ! forgotten the ceremonies which commemorated the 
most conspicuous events of their; history ! forgotten the sacri- 
fice which the observance of years had consecrated, the laws 
which they had received from heaven, and the precepts in 
which they had been educated from infancy ! What an im- 
pudent absurdity! What a bold and daring fraud ! How 
inconsistent with reason, and contradictory to all analogy ! 
The Roman government has been extinct for years ; but have 
their laws been lost ? The ceremonies of the Egyptians have 
long since sunk in neglect ; but have they been forgotten ? 
The gods of the Greeks have not, for centuries, been adored, 
nor their sacred books believed in ; but have either passed 
from the memory of man ? How is it, then, that the Jews, 



THE OLD TESTAMENT. 19 

with greater motives to vigilance, have forgotten what all 
others remembered ? or how can it be reconciled to divine 
wisdom and goodness, that Grod, who knows all things, and 
consequently knew that they would lose the Bible, made 
them the receptacles of so great a treasure ? Either the 
Jews are the most stupid people that ever lived, and Grod is 
neither so wise a Grod as he is represented, or Shaphan, in 
conjunction with the priests, framed the Bible themselves, 
and imposed it upon the king, or, with the assent of the king 
imposed it upon the people. 

That a forgery, purporting to be a divine revelation, is 
neither impossible nor difficult, the stupendous and demor- 
alizing systems of superstitions which have disgraced differ- 
ent nations, and riveted the fetters of ignorance and des- 
potism upon the human mind, give melancholy and indisputa- 
ble proof. Many different sects now exist in the world, 
equally preposterous in their nature, equally claiming to have 
derived their origin from heaven, and equally vindictive in 
anathematizing each other. As all can not be true, and some 
must be forgeries, it demonstrates the fact, that a religious 
system may be forged and palmed upon a whole nation, and 
that the people may venerate a system of impious fraud, 
may lavish their wealth and blood in the support and defense 
of an imposition of priestcraft, and may believe in miracles, 
prophecies, and doctrines which have been imposed upon 
them by designing and ambitious priests. 

As the possibility of a religious fraud can not be ques- 
tioned, the probability that the Old Testament is one, palmed 
upon the world during the reign of Josiah, is as reasonable 
as the finding of the Bible is absurd. That it is not a reve- 
lation from heaven, but a vile imposition of priests during 
the reign of Josiah, is as probable as it is improbable that 
the whole Jewish nation, within less than fifty-seven years, 
should forget the laws by which they had for ages been gov- 
erned, the ceremonies to which they had strictly conformed, 
and the institutions for which they had fought and bled. 
Suppose some powerful despot, thirsting for supreme power, 
and wishing to demolish a government which allowed liberty 
of speech, had, by a success unfortunate for mankind, sub- 
verted our noble republic, and established a different system 



20 AN EYE-OPENER. 

of religion and a despotic form of government, could the 
lapse of fifty-seven years erase from our memory all recollec- 
tion of the Bible which but a few respect ; of the bloody and 
protracted struggle for the independence of our nation -, of 
Washington, the father of our country -, and Jefferson, the 
bold champion of liberty, and the talented author of the 
Declaration of Independence ; or of the anniversaries 
observed in commemoration of the illustrious periods of 
our national history ? The question implies too much 
absurdity, and reflects too much discredit upon the in- 
telligence, the virtue, the humanity, of any nation, to be 
seriously, proposed without offering them an insult. Yet 
this contemptuous and degrading aspersion is cast upon the 
Jewish nation by their own priests, who, in their famished 
thirst to find a foundation upon which to base their fraud, 
have vilified the character of their own nation, and held 
them forth as sunk in intelligence, virtue, and common 
respect beneath the dignity of human beings. 

It is not only unquestionably possible, and highly probable, 
but absolutely certain, that the Bible is a forgery by Jewish 
priests, under Josiah's reign. It is as certain as the story of 
finding it is incredible ; as certain as it is impossible that the 
Jews should forget the laws, ceremonies, and institutions 
which gave birth and perpetuity to their nation ; as certain 
as it is incontrovertible that no nation has ever forgotten all 
its religious institutions and civil enactments, by whatever 
tyrants they have been abolished, or to whatever slavery or 
exile they have been ignominiously doomed ; as certain as it 
is preposterous to suppose, that, after a thralldom of fifty years, 
we should lose all our law-books, or all remembrance of the 
Bible, or Paine's " Age of Reason •/' as certain as it is blas- 
phemy to attribute the folly to Grod of selecting a nation as 
the medium of a communication of his will to mankind, who 
lost it a few years after receiving it ; as certain as it is incon- 
sistent with infinite mercy to allow a few to defeat the object 
of his revelation, and to consign the world to ignorance 
respecting the principles upon which their immortal and 
unchanging destinies are suspended ] as certain as that the 
tale impugns the wisdom of God, and ascribes to him an 
absurdity which is too disgraceful for a fool to commit. 



THE OLD TESTAMENT. 21 

The circumstances of the case encouraged the forgery, and 
afforded every facilit}? for its successful practice. When 
Josiah began to reign, he was a child only eight years old; 
and it is fair to presume, that as he did not adorn his country 
by any brilliant achievement, and is unknown in the history 
of other nations, Nature had not endowed him with any ex- 
traordinary genius. Surrounded by hypocrites and fawning 
priests, who are ever ready to take advantage of ignorance 
and inexperience, and who are better versed in the arts of 
delusion than they are in honesty and useful science; unac- 
customed to the deep-laid system of fraud which the artful 
and unprincipled endeavor to impose upon those who are too 
young in the world to know how often the profession of 
friendship is the mask of interest; and educated from his 
cradle to believe priests under the influence of divine inspi- 
ration, and that he should respect their sentiments and obey 
their injunctions, he was liable to become an easy victim to 
their deception, and a pliant tool of their impious and ambi- 
tious design. His confidence in human integrity, which 
experience had not yet impaired, and the disingenuous prin- 
ciples inherent in the human constitution, which lead us to 
respect the wise and venerate the good, and which, properly 
directed, lead to the happiest results, but which, under the 
icnfluence of injudicious principles, often sanction fraud and 
support error, — all combined to subject him to their domin- 
ion. So young, and possessing only an ordinary degree of 
intellect, he was not invulnerable to the seducing sycophancy, 
or the artful address and allurements of those adepts in 
hypocrisy whose profession is to deceive. Taught from his 
infancy to despise the established religion of his country, 
and to repeal the lawS' and abolish the rites instituted by,his 
father, we are not surprised to find him, at the age of twelve, 
purging the temple with uncharitable and inhuman zeal, and 
a few years afterwards believing the Bible to have been found. 

Besides the indomitable influence which the Bible em- 
powers the priesthood to exert over the conscience and rea- 
son of mankind, and the foundation which it lays for a 
consolidation, of power the most stupendous and despotic 
that ever alarmed the friends of liberty, there existed a 
strong temptation in the circumstances of the Jewish nation 



22 AN EYE-OPENER. 

at the period wlien tlie Bible was forged to induce even 
good men to sanction it, and Josiah, if he were not imposed 
upon, which is hardly the case, to lend it his approval. It 
appears that the Jewish nation was tottering upon the verge 
of destruction, and was threatened by the same power which 
had subverted the kingdom of Israel, and carried its subjects 
into captivity, and which, within a short time after Josiah's 
death, carried its threats into full execution. Charity might 
lead us to suppose, though reason affords no proof, that the 
impious fraud was founded upon a desire to fortify the nation 
against foreign aggression, and, by deceiving the people with 
the belief that they were fighting under the direction and for 
the institution of heaven, to enlist in their defense all the 
zeal of fanaticism, and all the confidence of the ultimate 
triumph of their arms. 

The story of Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet, having 
found a Bible, is not more unreasonable or unworthy of 
belief than the tale of Hezekiah. Though both are false, 
yet, of the two, the Mormons are the most plausible. Their 
Bible was found, not in an age of ignorance and superstition, 
but in a period of enlightenment and free inquiry. Thou- 
sands have been duped by the fraud • and the accessions daily 
made to their numbers have no parallel in the annals of his- 
tory, unless we accept the Spiritualists of the present day. 
While Christianity for years had but few followers, this has 
been preached in almost every part of Christendom with in- 
credible success. The Jewish, Christian, and Mahometan 
religion made but ■ few converts, until a fortuitous concur- 
rence of circumstances gave them the power to butcher their 
opponents ; but Mormonism has acquired all its triumphs by 
argument, and gained all its converts by persuasion. 

Additional proof that the Old Testament is a forgery, 
ingeniously palmed upon the world at some ignorant and 
superstitious age, may be gathered from the style in which 
the different books are written. The style is not the style 
of different, but of the same period ; and of men possessing 
various grades of intellect, none of a very high order, but 
some of better taste and more elegance than others. All the 
languages now spoken in the world, or which have been at 
different ages, are now and ever have been undergoing a 



THE OLD TESTAMENT. _ 23 

gradual change, which, in the course of time, will effect such 
a complete revolution in their nature, that after ages will 
doubt if they are the same. The Greek tongue, originally 
one, owing to certain local influences exerted upon it, be- 
came divided into as many dialects as it had provinces, so 
different from each other that those accustomed to the one, 
frequently could not understand the other. The Grerman, 
French, and all other languages, ancient or modern, have 
been differently spelled, written, and pronounced, at different 
periods of history and in different sections of their own 
country. The change in the English language since the 
time of Chaucer is so great, that the reader of the present 
day can not understand his works without the aid of a glos- 
sary. The same may be said respecting the works of Spen- 
cer, and writers of the Reformation. Now, had part of the 
Bible been written by Moses, another part by Samuel, another 
part by David, and another part by prophets living at a still 
later period, there would have been such a vast difference 
between the different books, respecting the meaning of the 
words and the method of spelling them, as to require a lexi- 
con for each book. But this is not the fact ; for a man who 
can read the book of Grenesis can read any other part of the 
Bible. The style employed in the different books of the 
Bible is certainly different, but, nevertheless, that of the same 
age, of writers cotemporary, or nearly so, differing only in 
degrees of education, taste, or refinement. 

We have now adduced sufficient proof to all who have a 
disposition to be convinced, that the Old Testament is a fraud 
imposed on the world under the reign of Josiah. It would 
be unpardonable vanity to hope to convert a bigot, or to con- 
vince a fanatic ; they are ignorant in spite of conviction, 
and wrong in defiance of reason ; but, fettered by supersti- 
tion, plundered by priests, and cajoled by hypocrites, they 
are too much the victims of folly not to be genuine objects 
of commiseration. Avoiding to exasperate them by argu- 
ment, we can do no more than consign them to the disgrace 
which they have chosen. To men who will think, who will 
admit what they cannot deny, and believe what is proved, 
we address our arguments, knowing thit they are fortified 
against error, and need but to see in order to acknowledge 
ihe tiuth. 



THE BIBLE AND OTHER 
SACRED BOOKS. 



. Whoever be the writers of the Bible, it is evident that 
they borrowed the idea of a holy book, and much of its sub- 
ject-matter from idolaters. All nations have had sacred 
books which they profess to have received from heaven. The 
Egyptians, to whom the Israelites were said to have been in 
bondage; the Assyrians, by whom they were carried into 
captivity; the Hindoos, the Chinese, and other nations dis- 
tinguished for antiquity, all have divine revelations. The 
intercourse which the Jews had with different nations sug- 
gested the idea of making a Bible ; but they were not quite 
so successful as those from whom they borrowed the idea. 
Other Bibles were so credible and unobjectionable as to 
seduce nations of intelligent and discriminating men. Phi- 
losophers, generals, and statesmen, all became captivated by 
the magnificence of the fraud and the arguments by which 
they were recommended. Such religions became interwoven 
with governments, flourished, and fell with them. But the 
really bungled and absurd fraud of the Bible was so miser- 
ably conceived, and so impious in its contents, that, wherever 
the industry of priests have propagated it, but few persons 
have been foolish enough to receive it as truth ; and the vast 
majority have shown their infidelity by violating its injunc- 
tions without fear. 

The idea of inspiration was originally borrowed from the 
Pagans. Every great man was believed to be inspired j 
Plato says no man can be great without divine inspiration. 
2i 



THE BIBLE AND OTHER SACRED BOOKS. 25 

Homer, Lycurgus, Romulus, Pythagoras, Solon, and all the 
distinguished generals and sages, were not only regarded as 
divinely illuminated, but worshiped after their death as 
gods. The difference between the holy men of the Bible 
and those of the heathen is very great. Blood, adultery, and 
cruelty hallowed the former; while virtue, genius, and use- 
fulness consecrated the other. 

The priesthood was also a plagiarism from heathens. The 
Assyrians and Egyptians had a priesthood consisting of dif- 
ferent orders, before the time claimed for the existence of the 
Jewish nation. If not the originators, they are the unques- 
tionable supporters, of the invidious distinctions in society 
between the different professions in life. They profess to be 
humble^ while they claim the highest rank. The pagan 
priests were satisfied in being upon an equality with kings ; 
but Jewish and Christian priests arrogate the presumption 
of being superior to them. Whenever they gained the power, 
they have always shown the disposition to assert suprem- 
acy. 

Professing to be divinely gifted, and endowed with great 
genius, as well as having monopolized all human learning, 
they expect every one to do them reverence, and to obey 
their dictations. The man who disputes their authority or 
exposes their presumption is branded as the enemy of (jrod 
and man. The virtues of infidels are made vices, their char- 
acter defamed, and their death-bed a recantation of their 
opinions. 

The idea of a prophet is a miserable corruption of the 
ancient oracles. It was a custom among ancient Egyptians, 
Assyrians, and Grecians to consult the oracles before enga- 
ging in battle, or undertaking any important business. The 
profoundest philosophers, the most sagacious commanders of 
armies, kings, and princes, illustrious for their achievements 
even in the most enlightened periods of the world, have often 
become the infatuated dupes of this ingenious imposition. 
Crowns, vases, shields, and statues of gold and silver were 
heaped upon their tripods. The presents to the oracle of 
Delphi, at the time of Diodorus Siculus, amounted to near 
six millions of dollars. The credit which they acquired is 
astonishing. Tacitus, speaking of Grermanicus Apollo, at 



26 AN EYE-OPENER. 

Clarus, says ; " It is not a woman that gives the answer there, 
as at Delphi, but a man, chosen out of a certain family always, 
at Miletus. It is sufficient to let him know the number and 
names of those who come to consult him ; after which he 
retires into a cave : and, having drunk the waters of a spring 
within it, he delivers answers in verse upon what the person 
had in his thoughts, though he is often ignorant, and knows 
nothing of composing measure. It is said he told Germani- 
cus his sudden death, but in dark and ambiguous terms, ac- 
cording to the custom of oracles." Diodorus, speaking of 
the Delphi, says, " There was a cavity upon Mount Parnas- 
sus where the oracle was erected, from whence an exhalation 
arose which intoxicates the brain, and made the goats dance 
and skip about. A shepherd having approached it, from a 
desire to know the cause of so extraordinary an effect, was 
immediately seized with violent agitations of the body, and 
pronounced words he did not understand himself, but which, 
however, foretold futurity. Others made the same experi- 
ment ; and it was soon rumored throughout the neighboring 
region. The cavity was no longer approached without rev- 
erence. The exhalation was concluded to have something 
divine. A priestess was appointed to receive the exhalation, 
and a tripod placed upon the vent where she delivered her 
oracles/^ After a long preparation of fasts, sacrifices, purifi- 
cations, and other ceremonies, the Pytha, or priestess, 
ascended the tripod ; and, when the divine vapor had pene- 
trated her vitals, 

" Her color changed ; her face was not the same ; 
And hollow groans from her deep spirit came ; 
Her hair stood up ; convulsive rage possessed 
Her trembling limbs, and heaved her laboring breast. 
Greater than human kind she seemed to look, 
And with an accent more than mortal spoke. 
Her staring eyes with sparkling fury rolled, 
When all the god came rushing from her soul. 

DryderCs Virgil. 

The general characteristics of oracles were ambiguity, yet 
some answers were clear and circumstantial. Cressus, doubt- 
ing the veracity of the oracle, demanded of it by an ambas- 
sador what he was doing at a certain time prefixed. The 
oracle replied, he was causing a tortoise to be roasted in a 
brass vessel, which was the fact. Trojan, doubting the god 



THE BIBLE AND OTHER SACRED BOOKS. 27 

at Heliopolis, sent a letter and demanded an answer. The 
oracle comanded a blank letter to be sealed and sent to him. 
This corresponded with his letter. This phenomena at this 
time is well understood. Our friends the Spiritualists will 
explain. 

These historical relations show to what an unbounded ex- 
tent the frauds of priestcraft may be perpetuated. In an 
age of great polish, and among a people shrewd, inquiring, 
and intelligent, it acquired an indomitable influence over 
kings and statesmen. The creation of prophets suggested 
by the heathen oracles, and fabricated at a much later date, 
has not been quite so successful. The first scarcely ever 
failed in their prophetic enunciations ; the last always did. 
The oracles were universally believed by the nation in which 
they were situated ; the prophets had but few followers 
among the people in which they lived, and fewer believers. 
The former acquired the confidence of other nations ; the 
latter never did. All history, both natural and Christian, 
acknowledge the power of the oracles in prophetically fore- 
telling events ; yet no heathen writer pays this compliment 
to the Bible prophets. Christian or superstitious writers 
attribute the power of oracles to the influence of the Devil, 
but never impeach them. This shows that the oracle deserves 
more respect than the prophet. Both are frauds ; but one 
is ingenious and plausible, the other has not an atoning 
feature. 

The power to work miracles, arrogated by the prophets 
and apostles, is plagiarized from ancient systems of supersti- 
tion, organized prior to the Jewish or Christian fraud. 
Priests, emperors, and sages are said to have been endowed 
with the power of working miracles. In corroboration of 
this fact, we will notice a few instances. " Aristides," says 
Herodotus, " died at Proconseus; but his body could not be 
found for seven years } afterward he appeared and made 
verses, and then disappeared ; three hundred and forty years 
after this he was seen at Metapontum, where he erected an 
altar to Apollo, and a statue for himself close by it, telling 
them he had once been a crow which accompanied Apollo 
into Italy, after which he vanished again." Jamblicus, in 
his life of Pythagoras, says, " Pythagoras foretold to some 



28 AN EYE-OPENER. 

fishermen tlie exact number of fish they had caught, and, hav- 
ing paid for them, commanded the men to return them alive 
into the sea; that he also detained the savage Danian bear, 
and, having fed it with maize and acorns, compelled it by an 
oath no longer to touch any thing -, that by whispering in the 
ear of an ox which was eating green beans, at Tarentum, 
he not only caused the beast to refrain from them, but- that 
the latter never afterward tasted them j and that he showed 
the Scythian philosopher^ Albrais, his golden thigh, telling 
them he had come down from heaven, and assumed the human 
form for the purpose of remedying and benefiting the condi- 
tion of mankind/' History records a wonderful miracle per- 
formed by the Emperor Vespasian. " One of the common 
people of Alexandria," says Tacitus, " known to be diseased 
in his eye, by the admonition of the god Serapis, whom that 
superstitious nation acknowledged above all other gods, pros- 
trated himself before the emperor, earnestly imploring from 
him a remedy for his blindness, and entreating that he would 
deign to anoint with spittle his cheek and the balls of his 
eye. Another, diseased in his hand, requested by the admo- 
nition of the same god, that he might be touched by the foot 
of the emperor. Vespasian derided and despised their appli- 
cation ; afterwards, when they continued to urge their peti- 
tions, he sometimes appeared to dread the imputation of 
vanity ; at the time, by the earnest supplications of patients, 
and the persuasion of the flatterers, he was induced to hope 
for success. At length he commanded an inquiry to be made 
by physicians, whether such blindness and debility were in- 
vincible to human aid. The report of the physicians con- 
tained various points ; that in the one, the power of vision 
was destroyed, but would return if the obstacles were re- 
moved; that in the other, the diseased points might be 
restored if a healing power were applied; that it was perhaps 
agreeable to the gods to do this; that the emperor was elected 
by divine permission ; lastly, that the credit of the success 
would be the emperor's, the ridicule of the disappointment 
would fall on the patients. Vespasian, believing that every 
thing was in the power of his fortunes, and that nothing was 
any longer incredible, whilst the multitudes which stood by 
eagerly expected the event, with a countenance expressive of 



THE BIBLE AND OTHER SACRED BOOKS. 29 

joy, executed what lie was desired to do. Immediately the 
hand was restored to its use, and light returned to the blind 
man. They who were present relate both these cures, even 
at this time when there is nothing to be gained by lying.'' 
Apollonius, a Pythagorean philosopher, was born about the 
Christian era. His companion, Damos, wrote a commentary 
in which a number of miracles, wonders, cures of diseases, 
expelling demons, giving sight to the blind, raising the dead, 
and foretelling remarkable events are ascribed to him. In- 
stances of this species of fraud may be multiplied from every 
age and nation, but we have already exceeded our limits. 

The Bible division of time is also a plagiarism. The zeal 
with which the Egyptians and Hindoos studied astronomy 
revealed to them the revolution of the heavenly bodies. 
From the earliest periods of history they calculated three 
hundred and sixty-five days and six hours in a year. The 
situation of the Egyptian pyramids is a standing argument 
of their extensive acquaintance with the science of astrono- 
my. The division of time in the Bible is not the result of 
inspiration, but of plagiarism. It was known by heathens 
long before the Jewish nation is said to have existed. 

The Jewish sacrifices were borrowed from pagan nations. 
All history gives the Egyptians credit for the inventions of 
festivals and sacrifices. The scape-goat of the Jews is a 
most daring plagiarism. In one of the Egyptian sacrifices, 
they laid hands on the head of a goat, and, after loading it 
with imprecations, prayed God to divert upon the victim's 
head all the calamities which threatened the nation. 

The introduction of physical evil into the world by the 
curiosity of Eve is founded upon the story of Pandora. 
Jupiter incautiously gave her a box ; but, under the impulse 
of a fatal curiosity, she opened it, when out flew all the evils 
in the world : hope alone remained in the bottom of the 
casket. The resemblance between the copy and the original 
cannot be mistaken. Woman's curiosity is made, in both 
cases, the origin of evil. In the one instance she happened 
to desire to know how some fruit tasted ; in the other to 
discover what was in a box. In both cases she violated the 
commands of her creator to gratify an idle curiosity, and 



30 AN EYE-OPENER. 

misery, crime, and death is made the consequence. They are 
both false, and a libel upon the female character. 

The translation of Enoch corresponds with, and was sug- 
gested by, prior stories of deified men and heroes. Hesperius 
and Astrea were believed to have ascended alive to heaven, 
and turned into stars. The Hindoos have the same story of 
Dhruva; the Ceylonese of Buddha; the Calmucks, Xaca; 
Christians of Jesus. They are all believed by some nations, 
but are absurd and ridiculous. Unfortunately for the fame 
of Enoch, he is not so generally believed in by the nations 
which are deceived by his priests as the others are. 

The story of Jephthah's daughter was suggested by that 
of Iphigenia, who was sacrificed by her father, Agamemnon. 
They are both barbarous, inhuman, and diabolical. They 
stain the pages of every book which records them as facts ; 
and it is a satisfaction to know that they are but childish 
fables. 

The ridiculous tale of Samson is the mangled tale of 
Scylla, without the merit of originality. Scylla, it appears, 
had the wickedness to cut off the purple lock of her father, 
Misus, king of Megara, and give it to Minus, her father's 
enemy, with whom he was at war; and by that undutiful 
means destroyed both him and his kingdom. 

The sun having stood still at the command of Joshua is 
foolish enough in its nature, and inconsistent enough with 
the revelations of science, to consign it to contempt ; but, if 
any thing can make it more so, it is the fact of its having 
been borrowed from the heathen. The Egyptians give an 
account of the sun having four times departed from its reg- 
ular course, setting twice where it ought to have risen, and 
rising twice where it ought to have set. Not having brains 
enough to concoct tales sufficiently wonderful, the inspired 
writers have had the folly to cram in their works all the folly 
of heathen writers. 

The universal gloom which is said to have covered the 
earth at the crucifixion of Christ was borrowed from the 
heathen tale, that, at the death of Julius Caesar, the sun grew 
dim, and continued so for a whole year. This curious tale is 
told by Virgil, Ovid, and Pliny. The latter miracle is greater 



THE BIBLE AND OTHER SACRED BOOKS. 31 

than the former, and supported by stronger proof; but they 
are both false. 

The whole Book of Job is a Gentile work. Aben-Ezra 
and Spinosa, two very learned and able Jewish commenta- 
tors, have shown by the G-reek terms Pleiades, Orion, and 
Arcturus, employed in it, and the incongruity of the genius 
of the drama to the Hebrew character, that it is a translation 
by the Jews from a Gentile production. The proverbs of 
Solomon, who was a heathen, and not a Jewish king, is 
another instance of the same fact. Part of the Levitical laws 
were borrowed from Lycurgus and Solon ; and the whole of 
the Lord's Prayer, according to Whitby, was stolen from 
other writers. 

The history of Moses is copied from the history of Bacchus, 
who was called Mises by the Egyptians, instead of Moses. 
Bacchus was born in Egypt ; so was Moses. Bacchus so- 
journed on a mountain in Arabia; so did Moses. Bacchus 
was commanded to destroy a barbarous nation; so was Moses. 
Bacchus passed through the Bed Sea on dry ground ; so did 
Moses. Bacchus was a lawgiver ; so was Moses. He wrote 
his laws on two tables ; so did Moses. Bacchus was picked 
up in a box that floated on the water ; so was Moses. Bac- 
chus had two mothers, the one by nature, the other by adop- 
tion ; so had Moses. Rays of light broke from the head of 
Bacchus ; so it happened with Moses. Bacchus, by striking 
a rock, made wine gush forth ; Moses, by a similar act, made 
water gush from a rock. And Bacchus was worshiped, and 
these deeds of his sung in the Orphic verses, in Egypt, 
Phenicia, Syria, Arabia, Asia, and Greece, before Abraham's 
day. 

The crucifixion of Christ is borrowed from a play of ^s- 
chylus, acted in Athens 500 years before the Christian era. 
The tragedy is Prometheus Bound. Prometheus united the 
divine and human natures in one person; so did Christ. He 
was the friend, benefactor, creator and saviour of men ; so 
was Jesus. His wrongs were incurred, and his sufferings 
endured, for his persecutors ; so it was with Jesus. He was 
silent under suffering ; so was Jesus. He was nailed to 
Mount Caucasus; Jesus was nailed to a cross on Mount 
Calvary. A fisherman forsook him; so it happened with 



32 AN EYE-OPENER. 

Jesus. Women only witnessed his dying agonies ; so it 
happened with Jesus. 

The Christian Church was founded on the Eclectic philos- 
ophy. The Eclectic philosophers had parishes, churches, 
bishops, priests, and deacons ; they had a gospel and epistles; 
they professed to have apostolic fathers ; and they had mis- 
sionary stations ; and were every way similar to the Church, 
except that they were an ancient sect before the Christian 
era. The Eclectics professed to be endowed with the mirac- 
ulous gift of healing; they made themselves eunuchs for 
sake of their salvation ; they practised self-mortification, fast- 
ing, and prayers; and, says Eusebius, " their sacred writings 
were none other than our gospels, and the writings of the 
apostles ; and that certain Diegesis, after the manner of alle- 
gorical interpretation of the ancient prophets — these were 
their epistles ; " and consequently Christianity was derived 
from them. The Eclectics despised all ornamental dress ; so 
did the Christians (see 1 Pet. iii. 8 ; 1 Tim. ii. 9). 
They maintained community of goods ; so did the Chris- 
tians. They asserted equality in external rank ; so did 
Christ (Matt. xx. 25; xxiii. 9). They taught that the 
vulgar should be deceived; so did Christ (Mark iv. 11). 
They taught that the scriptures should be translated alle- 
gorically; so did Paul (2 Cor. iii. 6); so did Origen, who 
said, " The gospels, taken in their literal sense, are mere fal- 
lacies and lies ; ^' so did St. Grregory, who asserts, " That 
the divine letter is not only dead, but deadly ; " so also 
did Athanasius, who admonishes all who interpret scripture 
according to the letter that they " must plunge into enor- 
mous blasphemies." The instances above are but a few of 
many illustrations on this point. 

Christian writers, both ancient and modern, admit that the 
doctrines of Christianity were known to the pagans before 
the birth of Christ. The following are a few of the admis- 
sions in point : ^' Those who lived according to the logos," 
says Clemens Alexandrius, " were really Christians, though 
they have been taught to he Atheists, as Socrates and He- 
raclitus were among the Greeks, and such as resembled them." 
'' God," says Origen, " revealed these things to them, and 
whatever things have been well spoken." '* If Cicero," says 



THE BIBLE ANT) OTHER SACRED BOOKS. 83 

Arnobius, " had been read as be ought to have been, there 
would have been no need of Christian writers." " The Chris- 
tian religion," says Augustine, " was known to the ancients, 
and existed from the commencement of the human race to 
the time of Christ; whence the true religion, which previously 
existed, was denominated Christian : and this, in our day, is 
the Christian religion, not as having been unknown in former 
times, but as having recently received the name." (Jhrist 
speaks of the Church as existing in his day (Matt, xviii. 
15) ; and St. Paul declares that the gospel which he preached 
had been preached unto every creature under heaven (Col. 
i. 23). 

From what we have stated in the above essay, it is evident 
the so-called word of God is stolen from the heathen. And 
the Gospels and Epistles are the works of heathens, existing 
prior to the time of Christ, but translated from the original 
Egyptian by the Eclectic philosophers, each making such 
additions as his knowledge warranted; and that the Christian 
councils selected from their translations such as best served 
their cause, and, after a struggle of several hundred years, 
succeeded in cramming them down the throats of the people. 
8 . 



THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



"Who the writers of the G-ospels and Acts of the Apostles 
were, it is impossible to ascertain. None of the apostles 
claim the authorship of them, and they are invariably spoken 
of in the third person. We are therefore compelled to admit, 
upon the strength of conclusive grammatical proof, and upon 
all the acknowledged principles of reasoning, that they were 
not written by any participator in the events which they 
record. When the writer of the Gospel of John speaks of 
the action of John, and uses the pronoun he or they, he 
denies that he is the same with the actor ; and, if it can be 
proved that he is, it shows the writer to be ashamed of his 
intention, or he would not leave this in doubt. Now, as the 
authors of the Gospels and Acts, when speaking of the apos- 
tles, used the third, and never the first person, it is plain 
that they were either not the apostles, or the apostles were 
impostors. 

The obvious and irreconcilable contradicions between the 
writers of the Gospels in relating the same story, which are 
apparent to every man of common sense, are too numerous 
to allow the belief that any set of writers could be contempo- 
rary, or even intimate associates, and commit such blunders. 
Had they been eye-witnesses of what they relate, or upon 
terms of intimacy with each other, their narrative, however 
different in costume, would have been the same thing in 
different language. But, instead of this harmony, they all 
tell different stories ; each contradicts what the other asserts. 
One relates extraordinary occurrences about which the other 



THE NEW TESTAMENT. 35 

is silent. The words and deeds attributed to Jesus are denied 
by tbe other ; what one declares he did at one time, another 
declares he did at a different time. The author of the book 
of Matthew tells us that at the crucifixion of Christ the rocks 
j were rent, the graves- opened, and the dead arose ; but the 
! writer of Luke says nothing about such a sublime and awful 
catastrophe, and according to his authority no such event 
took place. In Luke we are told that when Christ upon the 
cross had " cried with a loud voice. Father, into thy hands 
I commend my spirit, he gave up the ghost." But the 
author of John denies this, and says, " He said. It is finished ; 
and bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.'^ If the candid 
and intelligent reader wishes further confirmation on this 
point, let him compare the book ascribed to Matthew with 
those ascribed to Luke and John, and he will be satisfied 
that upon almost every subject they contradict each other; 
and 'one Grospel seems designed to correct the misrepre- 
sentations of the other. Besides this conclusive proof that 
the gospel writers were not contemporary, if the reader is 
acquainted with the Grreek tongue he will easily perceive 
that Luke, the Acts, as well as the Epistles of Paul, were 
written in a purer age than either the books of Matthew, 
Mark, or John. It is evident that the authors of the Glos- 
pels and Acts were not intimate associates, nor did they 
assume to be eye-witnesses of the stories which they relate, 
but wrote at different periods ; and the latter with the design 
of correcting the mistakes into which they supposed the 
former had fallen. 

The geographical, chronological, and statistical errors in 
the Grospels show conclusively that the writers were neither 
inhabitants of Judea nor contemporary with Jesus. We will 
submit a few examples. " He came unto the sea of Galilee, 
through the midst of the coast of Decapolis " (Mark vii. 
31). History informs us that there was no coast of Decapo- 
lis before the reign of Nero ; the writer of Mark could not 
have lived until Nero's reign, 50, A.D. " He departed 
from Galilee, and came unto the coasts of Judea beyond Jor- 
dan'^ (Matt. xix. 1). There was no coast beyond 
Jordan ; consequently the writer of Matthew was unac- 
quainted with the most prominent facts of his native 



36 AN EYE-OPENER. 

country. " He departed into Galilee, and, leaving Nazareth, 
lie came and dwelt in Capernaum " (Matt. v. 13). 
Nazareth and Capernaum were both in Galilee; how could 
Jesus depart from Galilee to visit two of the most prominent 
cities in Galilee ? and how could a Jew fall into such a mis- 
take ? " But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in 
Judea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go 
thither • notwithstanding, being warned of God in a dream, 
he turned aside into the parts of Galilee, and he came and 
dwelt in the city of Nazareth : that it might be fulfilled 
which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Naz- 
arene." (Matt, ii, 22). Had the author of Matthew 
been contemporary with Herod, he would have known that 
Archelaus reigned in all the parts of Galilee as well as in 
Judea ; that it was impossible for Joseph to have gone from 
Egypt to Nazareth without traveling the whole extent of 
Archelaus' kingdom. " Annas and Caiaphas being high 
priests " (Luke iii. 2). Any Jew would have known 
as much about his nation as to know that they never could 
have more than one high priest at a time. " Caiaphas being 
high priest that year^' (John ix. 5). The high priest's 
office was not annual, but for life ; a circumstance of 
which no Jew could possibly be ignorant. " Search and 
look ;, for out of Galilee ariseth no prophet " (John vii. 
52). But Nahum and Josiah were both prophets and 
Galileans. " And it came to pass in those days that there 
went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world 
should be taxed : and this taxing was first made when Cyre- 
nius was governor of Syria'' (Luke ii. 1, 2). Now, 
when we recollect that in '* those days " Judea was not a Bo- 
man province, and therefore could not have been taxed by 
Augustus Caesar, and that Cyrenius was* not governor of 
Syria till twelve years after this time, we must regard this 
passage as affording demonstrative evidence that the authors 
of the Gospels were neither contemporary with events they 
record nor Jewish historians. 

Confirmatory proof that the New Testament is of a much 
later date than is assigned to it by priests is derived from the 
style in which it is written. It is composed in corrupted 
G reek. It is not the Greek of Xenophon, Isocrates, Demos- 



THE NEW TESTAMENT. 37 

thenes, Plutarch, or Josephus, but of a much later period, 
and entirely unknown when the apostles are said to have 
flourished. 

The language spoken in Judea during the age assigned to 
Christ and his apostles was the Syriac or Chaldee. The 
Greek, like the French in. our age, was considered an accom- 
plishment, and was studied and sometimes spoken by men 
of wealth and leisure. It was perhaps as much known 
among the Jews as French is among us, though no person 
will contend that it was extensively adopted. Now, how it 
came to pass that the apostles wrote in Greek for the benefit 
of mankind, is as much a mystery as it would be were a book 
of laws and letters, design;8d to teach our nation important 
facts, written in the French language. Had they written for 
the purpose of instructing the educated and polished, and for 
the purpose of confining information to them, they adopted 
an infallible and adequate method ; but as they disavow that 
object, and profess to have written for the ignorant and fool- 
ish, it is inexplicable why they chose a language with which 
those for whose benefit they wrote were unacquainted. 

The defenders of the Christian faith contend that the He- 
brew became a dead language after the Babylonish captivity, 
and that from that time to the Christian era, embracing a 
period of six hundred years, the Chaldee was spoken in Ju- 
dea, and Syriac in Galilee. Now the following are the only 
instances in the New Testament of those languages being 
incorporated in the Greek tongue : Abba, Rom. viii. 15 ; 
Aceldama, Acts i. 19; Armageddon, Rev. xvi. 16 ; Bethes- 
da, John v. 12 ; Cephas, John i. 43 ; Corban, Mark. vii. 
11 ; Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani, Matt, xxvii. 46 ; Eph- 
phatha, Mark vii. 34 ; Mammon, Matt. vi. 24 ; Maran Atha, 
1 Cor. x. 22 ; Raca, Matt. vi. 24 ; Talithi cumi, Mark v. 
41. The fact that but eleven instances of incorporation of a 
language in which they are said to have spoken are found in 
the style of the New-Testament writers, and that they are 
invariably translated when used, shows, that the authors lived 
after the Chaldee language became extinct, and the meaning 
of its terms were unknown to the generality of readers. 
Had the writers conversed in the Chaldee language, they 
would more frequently have employed its terms ; or had they 



38 AN EYE-OPENER. 

written at a time when it was generally spoken, there would 
have been no necessity of translating them. These two facts 
prove that they lived at a later date than the Christian era. 

But, further, double the number of Latinisms are found 
in the New Testament to Chaldeisms or Syriacisms. This 
shows that its writers were more conversant with Latin than 
they were with Syriac, and consequently more likely to be 
Romans than Jews, who lived, not in Judea, where the 
Syriac was spoken, but in Rome, where the Latin was used. 

The New-Testament Greek comprehends the various dia- 
lects of the Grecian language. Aeolic, Boeotic, Doric, Ionic, 
and Attic, are all to be found in the New Testament. There 
are also Persianisms, Cilicisms and Hebrewisms. It also 
contains vulgarisms, foreign idioms, defects in composition, 
and grammatical errors. The style in which it is written 
affords abundant proof that its authors were men of limited 
acquirements, and that they wrote in a period when the 
Greek language was extremely corrupt, and not at the Chris- 
tian era, when it was spoken in its greatest purity and ele- 
gance. 

The most bigoted defenders of the New Testament do not 
deny that it contains instances of Talmudical readings. The 
Talmuds are two in number, and consist of two parts, called 
the Mishna and Gemara. The first is a collection of Jewish 
traditions which were committed to writing by Rabbi Jehu- 
dah, surnamed Hakkadosh, about the middle of the second 
century. Two commentaries have been written upon this, 
one at Jerusalem, in the fourth century, the other at Baby- 
lon, in the sixth century. When the Mishna and commen- 
tary accompany each other, they are called the Talmud ; if 
the Jerusalem accompany it, it is called the Jerusalem 
Talmud -, if the Babylonish, it is called the Babylonish Tal- 
mud. Now, it being an incontrovertible fact, admitted by 
the advocates of Christianity, that the New Testament con- 
tains Talmudical readings, it is plain that it was written 
after, and not before, the Talmud. 

It is incredible that a wise being would reveal his will in 
any language liable to corruption, or to become obsolete; 
much more so in such a language as the New-Testament 
Greek, — a puzzling amalgamation of all others, intermixed 



THE NEW TESTAMENT. 39 

with innumerable dialects, and which requires so much 
knowledge to fix its meaning. A worse channel for com- 
municating divine knowledge could not have been selected. 
The Latin^ the pure* Greek, or any other tongue, would have 
been better suited to the design, and afi"orded superior ad- 
vantages. 

By whom, or at whatever period, the dififerent books of the 
New Testament were written, they were not promulgated as 
the Word of Grod until by the council of JLaodicea, three 
hundred and sixty-four years after the Christian era. Ac- 
cording to Christian writers of that period, the authenticity 
of the various books of the New Testament was warmly con- 
tested. The Marchionists denounced the gospel as filled 
with fallacies. The Manicheans, one of the most numerous 
sects of Christians, rejected the whole New Testament, and 
produced other writings, which they held to be authentic. 
The Corinthians rejected the Acts of the Apostles. Thfe 
Encratites and Levenians rejected not only the Acts, but all 
of Paul's Epistles. Chrysostom assures us that many Chris- 
tians did not know there was such a book as the Acts of the 
Apostles. The Valentenians, according to Irene, declared 
the New Testament filled with errors, imperfections, and con- 
tradictions. The Nazarenes, or Ebionites, who were the first 
Christians, rejected the works of Paul, and regarded him as 
an impostor. They say that he was a pagan by birth, and 
came to Jerusalem, where he resided some time, and that, 
desiring to marry the daughter of the high priest, he had 
himself circumcised ; but not being able to obtain her, he 
wrote against the observance of the sabbath, circumcision, 
and all legal ordinances. Fanste, a Christian writer, says, 
"The books called the Evangelists have been composed long 
after the time of the apostles, by some obscure men, who, 
fearing that they would not gain credit to their relations of 
matters of which they could not be informed, have published 
them under the name of the Apostles, and which are so full 
of sottishness and discordant relations, that there is neither 
agreement nor connection between them." 

According to ancient Christian writers, the difi"erent books 
of the New Testament were decided to be divine or not, by 
vote. Some books were voted not to be inspired, and others 



40 AN EYE-OPENER. 

were voted to be inspired. Many of the minority not acqui- 
escing in the decision of the council, gave rise to bitter con- 
troversy, and to different Bibles, all claiming to be inspired. 
One sect had one kind of a Bible, and another quite a differ- 
ent kind. The Council of Laodicea determined the inspira- 
tion of the New Testament, not by any proof to sustain the 
extraordinary assumption, but by the majority of votes. 
Yet, notwithstanding the authority of the Council of Laodi- 
cea, the order of the Council of Carthage, 397, A.D., was 
" that nothing besides the canonical Scriptures be read in 
the churches under the name of divine inspiration;" the 
acknowledgment of the New Testament by the Council of 
Chalcedom, A.D., 401 ; yet it was so palpably untenable, that 
Dr. Lardner acknowledges that, so late as 506, A.D., ''the 
canon of the New Testament had not been settled by any 
authority that was decisive and universally acknowledged, 
But Christian people were at liberty to judge for themselves 
concerning the genuineness of writings proposed to them as 
apostolic, and to determine according to the evidence.'' 

The source whence the Four Grospels are derived, according 
to the fathers of the Church and the most erudite biblical 
critics, was an Egyptian diegesis, written by the Eclectic 
philosophers, at their college at Alexandria. Eusebius says 
that Philo described these Eclectics as having the " writings 
of the ancients and those of the first leaders of their sect, had 
left them many records of the sense conveyed in those alle- 
gories ; using which as a sort of example, they imitate the 
manner of the original doctrine ; and these things, it seems, 
are reported by a man who listened to the holy scriptures as 
they expounded them ; and, in short, it is very likely that 
those scriptures of the ancients, of which he speaks, were the 
Gospels and writings of the apostles, and that certain diege- 
sis, as it seems, of the ancient prophets, interpreted, such as 
the Epistles of Paul to the Hebrews contains, and many 
others ; these are the epistles." Euphanius tells us that all 
the Grospels were drawn from the same source. Dr. Lardner 
thinks the three first evangelists must have translated their 
accounts from some Syriac or Hebrew document or docu- 
ments. Bishop Marsh thinks it most prudent not to hazard 
an opinion. Niemeyer says, " If credit be due to the au- 



THE NEW TESTAMENT. 41 

thority of the fathers, there existed a most ancient narra- 
tive of the life of Jesus Christ. This narrative (continues 
he) is distinguished by various names, as the Gospel of the 
Twelve, the Grospel of the Hebrews, the Grospel according 
to Matthew, the Gospel of the Nazarenes^ and the same, 
unless all things deceive me, is to be considered as the foun- 
tain from which other writings of this sort have derived their 
origin, as streams from the spring." '^ We possess," says 
Eichhorn, " in our first three Gospels, three translations of the 
above-mentioned short life of Christ, which were made inde- 
pendently of each other. Examples may be produced which 
may betray even an inaccuracy of translation." " At the 
head of the first class of scriptures," says Beausobre, "are 
to be placed two Gospels, — that according to the Hebrews, and 
that according to the Egyptians In my opinion the Gospel 
according to the Hebrews is the most ancient of all. That 
which has been called the Gospel according to the Egyp- 
tians is of the same antiquity. Origen has mentioned it ; 
Clemens of Alexandria had previously quoted it in many 
places ; and, if the second epistle of Clemens Eomanus be au- 
thentic, this Gospel would have a testimony yet more ancient 
than that of the two doctors. There is also, in the library of 
the fathers, a commentary on St, Luke, attributed to Titus 
of Bostra, in which this bishop seems to place the Gospel 
according to the Egyptians in the rank of those which 
Luke had investigated, and which consequently was anterior 
to his." 

Thus the fathers of the Church, the champions of the 
gospel, the most learned and able biblical critics, acknowl- 
edge what, as men of veracity, they are compelled to ac- 
knowledge, that the Gospels were translated from a common 
diegesis ; that this diegesis was an Egyptian work, and con- 
sequently a pagan production. This acknowledgment de- 
stroys its divinity, but reconciles all discrepancies : it is me- 
ridian efi"ulgence poured on midnight darkness. The Eclec- 
tics, according to Philo, had established missionary stations 
at Rome, Corinth, "Galatia, Ephesus, Philippi, Colosse, and 
Thessalonica, similar to the principles laid down in the 
Epiotles of Paul to these places. They had a diegesis from 
which the Gospels were translated, which, when Philo visited 



42 AN EYE-OPENER. 

them, not more than twenty years after Christ was born, were 
considered ancient ) which makes the history of Jesus 
ancient before he was twenty years old. The Eclectics pro- 
fessed to cull from every religion and philosophy whatever 
was valuable ; hence we find the New Testament composed 
of every dialect, and forming a compound of morals from 
plays, from philosophers, from various religions, and enjoining 
the rites of every sect. The New Testament is written in 
Alexandrine G-reek, — - a Grreek spoken in Egypt, and conse- 
quently used by the Eclectics. In translating their diegesis, 
they made such additions to it as their travels enabled them 
to gather from other countries, hence the innumerable trans- 
lations spoken of by the early Christian writers, and their 
irreconcilable discrepancies. 

With this view of Christianity, all is clear as noonday; 
and, although it destroys its divinity, it presents it to our 
admiration and respect ; for it must be regarded as embody- 
ing whatever was esteemed lovely and of good report. It is 
only as a divine, not as a human invention, that it excites 
contempt. When the lofty claim of divinity is arrogated for 
it, and its errors and contradictions disprove that claim, it is 
then that honesty revolts at its impiety. As a human pro- 
duction, it is harmless ; as a divine communication, it supports 
fraud, sanctions impiety, embitters existence, and in all its 
tendencies is vitiating and dangerous. 



HISTOEY AND THE BIBLE. 



The so-called divine word not only contradicts itself, but is 
contradicted by all ancient history. The silence of ancient 
historians respecting events with which they must all have 
been familiar, if they ever occurred, casts strong suspicion 
upon their reality. The departure of Israel out of Egypt, 
the stupendous miracles which were attributed to Moses, the 
arrest of the sun by Joshua, the magnificent and brilliant 
reigns of the kings of Israel, the butchery of the babes by 
Herod when Christ was an infant, the general darkness which 
covered the earth at the crucifixion of Christ, together with 
many other important events, had they ever occurred, would 
have engaged the attention and employed the pen of every 
historian. The profound silence of history respecting the 
wonderful events mentioned in the Bible subjects their ex- 
istence to a just and warrantable suspicion. 

The doubt which the silence of ancient history casts upon 
the tales of the Bible is confirmed by the conduct of priests. 
Conscious that the Bible is false, without reason to commend 
it, they have endeavored to manufacture proof. For this 
purpose they have interpolated history, forged a variety of 
books, and labored to bend history to the support of their 
falsehoods. Their conduct is an acknowledgment that the 
stories in the Bible are liable to a just suspicion. Why else 
interpolate history ? Why strive to make it mean what it 
does not ? Why forge books ? Why adopt every means 
that ingenuity could devise, or hypocrisy dictate, to manufac- 
ture proof? Is it because the Bible was unable to sustain 
itself, or because history aff"orded it superabundant proof? 
48 



44 AN EYE-OPENER. 

Why did Constantine order all writings adverse to the claims 
of Christianity to be committed to the flames ? Why did 
Theodosius command every house to be searched, and every 
treatise in it that militated against Christianity to be burnt? 
Why were Porphery's thirty books against Christianity, and 
the voluminous writings of the Augustan age, either interpo- 
lated or partially or wholly destroyed ? And why were silly 
works written by priests against the Bible, and answered by 
those who wrote them, and with such little art as to procure 
them the contempt of all honest men of any education ? Why 
was all this ? The answer is plain. These reverend parsons, 
these holy impostors, without veracity, honor, or virtue, knew 
that their fraud would never succeed while such testimony 
existed against them. 

History is not only silent respecting events recorded in 
the Bible, but it contradicts them, A few instances of this 
fact will satisfy the reader. 

" And it came to pass in those days, that there went out 
a decree from Csesar Augustus, that all the world should be 
taxed ; and this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was 
governor of Syria (Luke ii. 1,2), 

Now, no such governor as Cyrenius ruled Syria at this 
time, Laturnius and Volumnius were its presidents ; and 
Cyrenius was not governor until some time after, 

" But Herod the tetrach, being reproved by him for Hero- 
dias his brother Philip's wife," &c. (Luke iii. 19), 

His brother, according to history, was not Philip, but 
Herod, 

Frequent charges are made in the Bible of heathens wor- 
shiping images. It appears from Plutarch that the divine 
writers were mistaken, and that the heathen never worshiped 
images. " As the sun and moon,'^ says he, " heavens, earth, 
and sea, are common to all men, but have different names 
according to different nations and languages, in like manner 
there is one deity and one providence which governs the 
universe, and which has several subaltern ministers under it ; 
men give to this deity, which is the same, different names, 
and pay it different honors, according to the laws and cus- 
toms of every country.'' 

The world is much older than the Mosaic account will 



HISTORY AND THE BIBLE. 45 

allow us to admit. Geological and astronomical facts estab- 
lish the fallacy of the Bible age. The astronomical observa- 
tions of the Chaldees are also confirmatory. The Hindoos 
have a treatise on astronomy called Luyo-Liddhanta, which 
they hold to be over two millions years old. The Egyptian 
historians have traced their kings back to more than twenty 
thousand years. Manetho, under Philadelphus Ptolemais, 
traced their kings through thirty successive dynasties. All 
facts go to refute the idea that the world is only six thousand 
years of age. 

Noah's Deluge is also contradicted by plain facts. The 
Hebrew manuscript places its occurrence in the year of the 
creation of the world, 1656 } the Samaritan, 2309 ; and the 
Septuagint, 2282. No history but the Bible makes any 
mention of Noah and his ark. Adam, the original source of 
man, as well as Noah and his children, are known only to 
the Jews. The army of Ninus, which probably was at the 
time of the flood, and which all the contortions of priests 
could not place later than one hundred and seventeen years 
afterwards, numbered 1,700,000 foot, 200,000 cavalry, and 
1,600,000 chariots, armed with scythes, amounting at least 
to 12,500,000 warriors. Egypt, according to the earliest his- 
torians, had twenty thousand thickly inhabited cities, one of 
which alone could at a moment's warning send forth twenty 
thousand chariots and one million warriors. 

The descriptions which ancient writers, such as Herodotus, 
the first historian, who wrote nearly five hundred years before 
the Christian era, or poets such as Homer, who flourished 
about one thousand years before Christ, give of the ruins of 
ancient cities in their day, are totally irreconcilable with the 
Bible age. There was an ancient city in Egypt, called Thebes, 
which had a hundred gates, and could send out of each gate 
two hundred chariots and twenty thousand warriors. One of 
the temples of this city is still partly standing ; and its vast 
proportions and magnificent design exceed the most costly 
edifices which have since existed. It has four walks extend- 
ing beyond the range of vision, bounded on each side with 
sphinxes composed of various materials, rare and extraordi- 
nary as their size was remarkable, serving as avenues to four 
porticoes of amazing height. A hall stood in the middle of 



46 AN EYE-OPENER. 

tte stately edifice, supported by a hundred and twenty-six 
pillars, six fathoms in circumference, intermixed with obe- 
lisks. This city was in ruins in the days of the first histori- 
an, and how long before this time no person can tell. It 
would take many thousand years to make New York as grand 
as Thebes, and as many thousand more to bury it in that ob- 
scurity in which Thebes was when Herodotus visited it. The 
present remains of this stupendous piece of architecture^ and 
the grandeur of its ruins recorded by the ancients, discover, 
coeval with the time of the Deluge, an age of the sublimest 
improvement, and a degree of cultivation unattained by suc- 
ceeding ages. 

The ancient works of Egypt and Assyria are standing 
monuments of the fallacy of the Bible. Man advances to 
perfection gradually, and the attainment of any great degree 
of refinement occupies a long series of years. The present 
architecture of houses, their internal arrangements, as well as 
the materials of which they are built, combine an improve- 
ment in science which requires years to mature. Even a 
chair, or the culinary arts, have taken many ages to gain their 
present stage of perfection. With these self-evident and indis- 
putable facts before us, we will discover that the Pyramids 
and Labyrinths of Egypt, as well as the Temple of Belus, 
combine improvements which must have resulted from many 
thousand years. The Pyramids are built upon a rock, with 
prodigious stones, the least of which were thirty feet, hewn 
in Arabia, wrought with wonderful art, and covered with hiero- 
glyphics ; each side is eight hundred feet broad, and as many 
high, having in them innumerable rooms and apartments. 
The Labyrinth was a magnificent pile of twelve palaces, reg- 
ularly composed, and communicating with each other ; con- 
taining fifteen hundred rooms, interspersed with terraces, 
ranged round twelve halls, with numerous subterranean 
buildings. The Temple of Belus, built by Assyrians, was 
half a mile in circumference, and a furlong high. The pop- 
ulous empire built a wall around Babylon eighty-seven feet 
thick, three hundred and fifty feet high, and sixty-four miles 
in circumference. Each side of the wall had twenty-four 
gates of brass, and each gate three towers. They built also 
hanging gardens. These contained a square of four hundred 



HISTORY AND THE BIBLE. 47 

feet on eacli side, were three hundred and sixty feet high, 
sustained by vast arches twenty-two feet thick, raised one 
above the other ; the top was ingeniously framed so as to 
support a layer of mold sufficient for the growth of large 
trees, which covered its surface ; the whole was watered by 
means of an engine. Now what nation, with all its popula- 
tion and resources, can construct works which will bear a 
comparison with any of these ? What nation is sufficient in 
the improvements of science for the purpose ? Where will 
they find architects, or the laborers ? Neither England, nor 
France, nor Russia, can find the means of removing certain 
stones which the Egyptians carried many hundred miles. 
Four thousand years have passed since the period assigned 
to Noah's flood, improvement after improvement has taken 
place, nations have become more polished and refined as ages 
have succeeded each other, and yet the first historians have 
given account of nations, more populous than those of our 
day, who possessed higher degrees of cultivation, and who 
constructed works, the ruins of which the oldest historians 
only saw, and the founders of which were lost in the antiqui- 
ty of their age. Ancient history and the Bible, upon this 
and every other important point, is irreconcilable. The one 
or the other must be false. If the Bible be not a forgery, 
history must be. If history is acknowledged, the Bible is 
refuted. 

Many historical facts and scientific discoveries may be 
adduced to show the fallacy of divine truth, so called. But 
we will mention one only. In the vaults and pits dug about 
Mount Etna, seven strata of lava have been found, each with 
a surface of soil upon them which would require two thousand 
years to accumulate. This would make the volcano fourteen 
thousand years old, or ten thousand older than the flood. 

Great revolutions have taken place in the condition of the 
earth. Mountains have sunk, and islands risen. The tem- 
perature of our continent was at one period very diff"erent 
from what it is now. The whole of the earth has been under 
water for many years at difi'erent periods. Every pebble and 
grain bears the marks of the action of water against them. 
But there was no such event as Noah's flood, nor any gen- 
eral revolution of nature for many thousand years before it 
is said to have occurred. 



BIBLICAL CONTEADICTIONS. 



The following instances of biblical contradiction will show 
what degree of respect the sacred penmen are entitled to: — 

1. " And Grod said, Let the earth bring forth living crea- 
tures after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of 
the earth after his kind '' (Gen. i. ^4). 

" And Grod made the beast of the earth after his kind, 
and the cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth 
upon the earth after his kind : and God saw that it was 
good " (Gen. i. 25). 

According to the first verse, God commanded the earth to 
create animals. But, according to the second verse, God 
created them himself. In the first verse the earth created 
beasts after his kind. After whose kind ? After the kind 
of beasts created by the earth before. But there were no 
beasts before. Both of these verses involve the absurdity 
that beasts were created before they were created. 

2. " And God saw every thing that he had made, and be- 
hold it was good. And the evening and the morning were 
the sixth day ^' (Gen. i. 31). 

" And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the 
ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life ; and 
man became a living soul " (Gen. ii. 7). 

" And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, 
and he slept ; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the 
flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which the Lord God had 
taken from man, made he a woman " (Gen. ii. 21-22). 

Obeying the command of the Bible to compare spiritual 
things with spiritual, what shocking absurdities stagger our 

48 



BIBLICAL CONTRADICTIONS. 49 

brains, and disgust our senses ! The first verse describes 
the reflections of God upon viewing his six days' labor. 
After he had made a man on the last day, and rested on the 
seventh, we are informed in the next verse that he created 
man of the dust of the earth. This, of course, was the crea- 
tion of a second man. The first was created in God's own 
image ; the second of the dust of the ground. The object 
in creating the first was, that he might govern, subdue, and 
replenish the earth; that of the second was, to till the 
ground. The second man had a living soul ; but, as nothing 
is said of the soul of the first, it is fair to presume, he either 
had no soul or a dead one ; for a living soul implies the exist- 
ence of a dead soul. The last verse relates the creation, or 
rather manufacturing, of a woman out of a rib taken from 
man. This being done after God had rested from all his 
works must be a second woman. The first was made on the' 
sixth day, the second after he had made man, planted Eden, 
and made him its gardener. The first woman was created, 
the second manufactured. The first was made in the like- 
ness of God, endowed with supreme dominion, and enjoyed 
equal rights with man. The second was merely the assistant ; 
but, unfortunately, the first thing she assisted him to was a 
gulf of hopeless misery. As nothing is said about her soul, 
according to the writer she had none. This opinion is con- 
firmed by the degradation to which women were subjected 
until the heathen taught Christians to respect their rights 
and character. 

'3. " And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it ; 
because in it he rested from all his work which God created 
and made " (Gen. ii. 3). 

" Remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, 
and that the Lord thy God brought thee thence through a 
mighty hand and a stretched-out arm -, therefore the Lord 
thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day " (Deut. 
V. 15). 

ThS first verse assigns the resting of God on the seventh 
day as the reason why it is sanctified. The second asserts, 
that the deliverance of Israel from an Egyptian bondage is 
the reason why God commanded it to be kept sacred. The 
contradiction is as obvious as the implication in the first 
4 



50 AN EYE-OPENER. 

verse that God needed rest is absurd. The last verse is a 
part of the fourth commandment, and contradicts the one 
given in Exod. xx. 11. 

4. " And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every 
sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with 
thee '' (Gen. vi. 19). 

" Of every clean beast, thou shalt take to thee by sevens, 
the male and his female ; and of beasts that are not clean by 
two, the male and his female. Of fowls of the air by sevens, 
the male and the female ^' (Gen. viii. 2, 3). 

" Of clean beasts and of beasts that are not clean, and of 
fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth, there 
went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and 
the female, as God had commanded Noah " (Gen. viii. 9). 

The first verse commands Noah to take two living things 
of all flesh into the ark. The second revokes this command, 
and substitutes an order in its place to take seven pairs of 
each sort of the fowls, seven pair of every clean beast, and 
two of every sort of unclean beast. The last verse declares 
that Noah violated this command, and took into the ark but 
two of every kind of beast and fowl, whether clean or un- 
clean. The writer must have been afflicted with a very short 
memory, and forgot in one verse what he asserted in another. 
It is an old saying, and a useful one to Bible-makers, that a 
liar should acquire a good memory, 

5. " And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the 
seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ara- 
rat '' (Gen. viii. 4). 

" And the waters decreased continually ; in the tenth 
month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the 
mountains seen^' (Gen. viii. 5). 

The tops of the mountains were visible, according to the 
second verse, upon the first of the tenth month ; and yet, 
according to the first verse, the ark rested on Ararat on the 
seventeenth of the seventh month, nearly three months be- 
fore. This is almost as great a miracle as pieces of the ark 
being found at this day upon its summit. But perhaps the 
ark sprung a leak, and sunk upon the mountain, though Ara- 
rat is not half so high as some other mountains, and the ark 
must have submerged many feet under water to rest upon it, 



BIBLICAL CONTRADICTIONS. 51 

when the tops of other mountains were covered. Yet this is 
a trifling objection : for Grod makes fish Mve under water; and 
why not make men, beasts, and birds ? 

6. " And Zerah lived seventy years, and begat Abraham, 
Nahor, and Haran '' (Gen. xi. 26) 

" And the days of Zerah were two hundred and five years ; 
and Zerah died in Haran " (Gen. xi. 32). 

" Abraham was seventy and five years old when he de- 
parted out of Haran" (Gen. xii. 4). 

If Zerah was seventy years old when Abraham was born ; 
and if he died in Haran at the age of two hundred and five 
years, or one hundred and thirty after the birth of Abraham, 
how could Abraham be but seventy-five years old when, some 
time after the death of his father, he departed from Haran ? 
He could not have been under one hundred and thirty, 
which is nearly twice as old as the last verse makes him. 
This generous indulgence to the youthfulness of Abraham 
might be pardoned, were it not arrogated for the writer that 
he is inspired, — a claim so inconsistent with the least 
mistake, that we are "at a loss to determine which is the 
most absurd, the writer, or those who declare him to be 
inspired. 

7. *' And it came to pass after these things, that God did 
tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham ; and he said, 
Behold, here am I " (Gen. xxii. 1). 

" Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of 
God ', for God cannot be tempted of evil, neither tempteth 
he any man'' (Jas. i. 11). 

The writer of James did not believe the wonderful story 
of Abraham, which is certainly a pardonable frailty among 
the independent and thinking orders of mortals, as it con- 
tains a degree of inhumanity and blasphemy as difficult to 
indorse as for priests to prove to be inspired. If he ever 
read it, he meant to condemn, in unequivocal terms, the 
writer for ascribing the temptations of human imperfection 
to God. He declares that God does not and can not tempt 
any person ; and that all temptations spring from lust, or 
some bewitching enticement of power, profit, or external 
allurement. 



ON THE PEOPHETS. 



The objects for whicli prophets were created are so obscure 
and unintelligible, that priests have warmly disputed the 
point; some assigning to them one purpose, and others 
another. One tells us it was to soothe the mind ; another, 
to repress the vain and presumptuous; a third, to discour- 
age vice ; a fourth, to support a religious spirit ; and a fifth, 
to accommodate the natural anxiety of men concerning the 
future. 
y The prophets were a very singular race of men ; their 
conduct was more suited to a fool and a maniac, than to a 
commissioned messenger from heaven. They prophesied 
with pipes, tabrets, horns, psalteries, harps, cymbals, and 
every other instrument then known. Were a man now to 
prophesy on a fiddle, or a trumpet, or a drum, he would be 
regarded as a madman; and why we should be more indul- 
gent to the fools of other times than we are to those of the 
present generation, can find no apology in common sense. 
Men are so charitable to persons of other times, that they 
are unjust to those of their own period and country; and 
regard that in the former an evidence of inspiration, which 
they would in the other a proof of insanity ; and conse- 
quently respect and honor one for the same reason that they 
despise and pity the other. But inconsistency is the legiti- 
mate ofi'spring of religion : were Christians to act rationally, 
they could not be very pious. 

Another singular characteristic of the inspired prophets 
is, that they were divided into difierent parties, and would 
not prophesy except for the party to which they belonged. 

52 



ON THE PROPHETS. 53 

The proptets of Judea would not prophesy for the kings of 
Israel, nor would the prophets of Israel prophesy for the 
kings of Judah. The following passage confirms this idea 
beyond doubt. 

" Jehoshaphat said, Is there not here a prophet of the Lord, 
that we may inquire of the Lord by him : And one of the 
king of Israel's servants answered and said. Here is Elisha, 
the son of Shaphat, which poured water on the hands of 
Elijah. And Jehoshaphat said, The word of the Lord is with 
him. So the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat and the king 
of Edom went down to him. And Elisha said unto the king 
of Israel, What have I to do with thee ? get thee to the 
prophets of thy father, and to the prophets of thy mother. 
And the king of Israel said unto him, Nay; for the Lord 
hath called these three kings together, to deliver them into 
the hand of Moab. And Elisha said. As the Lord of Hosts 
liveth, before whom I stand, surely, were it not that I regard 
the presence of Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, I would not 
look toward thee, nor see thee. But now bring me a min- 
strel. And it came to pass, when the minstrel played, that 
the hand of the Lord came upon him " (2 Kings iii. 11-15). 

It appears from this passage, that women and men had 
different prophets, and that an instrument was necessary to 
charm the hand of the Lord. Suppose Elijah had lost or 
mislaid his pipe, what would have been the consequence ? 
It was very fortunate for the king of Israel, and their army, 
that Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, was among them, for 
the holy man swore by the Lord, that, had he not been num- 
bered with them, he would not have seen them. 

Another characteristic of this singular order of men was, 
that they wandered about the country like gangs of strolling 
players. Saul, in returning from the pursuit of his father's 
strayed .asses, met a whole company of prophets, with a psal- 
tery, and a tabret, and a pipe, and a harp, who began to proph- 
esy ; and the hand of the Lord was upon Saul, and he began 
to prophesy (1 Sam. x. 5, 6, 11, 12). The subsequent 
passage is confirmatory of the fact : " Saul sent messengers 
to take David ; and, when they saw the company of prophets 
prophesying, and Samuel standing, as appointed, over them, 
ihe Spirit of God was over the messengers of Saul, and they 



54 AN EYE-OPENER. 

also prophesied. And wlien it was told Saul, lie sent other 
messengers, and they prophesied likewise. And Saul sent 
messengers a third time, and they prophesied also . . . 
And he went to Naioth and Ramah " (1 Sam. xix. 20, 24). 

The effect of prophecy was in perfect keeping with the 
ridiculousness of their character. " The Spirit of Grod came 
upon Saul when he heard those tidings, and his anger was 
kindled greatly. And he took a yoke of oxen, and hewed 
them to pieces, and sent them throughout all the coasts of 
Israel by the hands of messengers, saying, Whosoever Com- 
eth not forth after Saul and after Samuel, so shall it be done 
unto his oxen. And the fear of the Lord fell upon the 
people, and they came out with one consent (1 Sam. xi. 6, 
7). Again, " And he stripped off his clothes also, and 
prophesied before Samuel in like manner, and lay down 
naked all that night. Wherefore they say, Is Saul also 
among the prophets" (1 Sam. xix. 24) ? These are strange 
doings to be ascribed to the Spirit of God. If it were to 
come upon the people generally, cattle would be all hewn to 
pieces, and men would dispense with wearing apparel. But, 
happily for humanity and decency, it is confined to but a few 
favorites of heaven. 

The conduct of this curious piece of human nature is pre- 
cisely what might be expected. It compounded all the ele- 
ments of folly and impiety in one black mass. Lying, cruelty, 
and inhumanity are combined in it, in their most revolting 
features. Saul hewed to pieces a yoke of oxen ; Balaam 
beat an innocent ass almost to death; and Samuel was sorely 
grieved because Saul was humane enough to spare a king 
and some fat sheep and oxen. Less merciful than Saul, he 
hewed Agag into pieces (1 Sam. xv.). Such characters are 
truly laughable ; and, if they really existed, are fit only for 
ridicule and contempt. 

There were many false prophets. " The prophet of Jere- 
miah said unto Hananiah the prophet. Hear now, Hana- 
niah ] the Lord hath not sent thee ; but thou makest this 
people to trust in a lie " (Jer. xxviii. 15). "There shall 
arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great 
signs and wonders ; insomuch, if it were possible, they shall 
deceive the very elect'' (Matt. xxiv. 24). 



ON THE PROPHETS. 55 

This strange race of beings acquired considerable influ- 
ence. Samuel made both Saul and David kings. Like 
priests of our day, prophets were ambitious of power, and not 
very conscientious about the method by which it was ac- 
quired. Proportionate to their success, it was liberally used 
to extinguish their enemies, and promote the silly tool of 
their designs. Under the cloak of sanctity, they cherished 
all those ungenerous feelings which they professed to hate. 
By gross imposition upon ignorance and credulity, they have 
made slaves of those who esteemed them, and, with a sancti- 
monious promise of a better inheritance beyond the grave, 
have cheated thousands out of their houses and fortunes. 

Whether the holy prophets were school-teachers, wander- 
ing minstrels, or deranged fanatics, one thing is certain, that 
they prophesied falsely. The prophecies recorded in the 
Bible are ample proof of this. Like ancient oracles, most of 
the prophecies were clothed in dark, ambiguous language. 
A comparison between the two will explain my meaning. 
" At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and 
concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, to pull down, and to 
destroy it; if that nation, against whom I have pronounced, 
turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought 
to do unto them. And at what instant I shall speak con- 
cerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to 
plant it ) if it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, 
then I will repent of the good wherewith I said I would ben- 
fit them " (Jer. xviii. 7-10). According to this passage, a 
i change in human conduct is to alter a sworn declaration of 
i heaven ; Grod is to make an unconditional threat, and yet to 
I violate his oath, and prove him a liar, if men change their 
I acts. If this be true, the threats and promises of Heaven are 
j suspended upon human contingencies. In this way, the 
! prophet has artfully shielded himself from detection. The 
I oracles were often less ambiguous, but sometimes equally so, 
I as the following fact will testify : When Pyrrhus, king of 
I Epirus, consulted the oracle of Delphi, the answer may 
either i)e translated, " I say that thou, son of Acacus, canst 
conquer the Romans ; thou shalt gO, thou shalt return, thou 
shalt never perish in war ) or, I say the Romans shall con- 
quer thee, thou son of Acacus ; thou shait go, thou shalt 



56 AN EYE-OPENER. 

never return, thou shalt perisli in war." The resemblance 
between the two is too striking to escape the observation of 
the intelligent reader. I will not, therefore, insult his un- 
derstanding by any comments upon it. 

Frequent appeals have been made, with much apparent 
confidence, to the fulfillment of prophecies, in proof of their 
divine inspiration, But a few moments' investigation will 
show that none of them correspond exactly with the circum- 
stances which they are said to foretell, but many directly 
contrary to them. In proof of this, the following passages 
are submitted to the reader's consideration. 

" Surely the land whereon thy feet have trodden shall be 
thine inheritance, and thy children's forever " (Josh. xiv. 

9)- 

The Jews have long since been disinherited of Palestine, 
and become wanderers upon the face of the earth. Anathe- 
matized by the difi'erent systems of superstition which dis- 
grace the countries where they are tolerated, they have 
unjustly become a hated and despised race; but not more so, 
if as much, than Christians are by those whom they de- 
nounce. 

" Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring a sword upon 
thee, and cut off man and beast out of thee. And the land 
of Egypt shall be desolate and waste; and they shall know 
that I am the Lord ; because he hath said. The river is mine, 
and I have made it. Behold, therefore 1 am against thee, 
and against thy rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt 
utterly waste and desolate, from the tower of Syene even 
unto the border of Ethiopia. No foot of man shall pass 
through it, nor foot of beast shall pass through it ; neither 
shall it be inhabited forty years. And I will make the land 
of Egypt desolate in the midst of countries that are desolate, 
and her cities among the cities that are laid waste shall be 
desolate forty years : and I will scatter the Egyptians among 
the nations, and I will disperse them through the countries " 
(Ezek. xxix. 8-12). 

This denunciation is similar to those usually applied to the 
Jews ; and, had similar notions bound them in one, and simi- 
lar events scattered them over the earth, it would have been 
regarded a similar standing proof of the inspiration of 



ON THE PROPHETS. 57 

prophets ; but this being not the fact, it is standing evidence 
that the idea of their being under divine influence is alto- 
gether a mistake. 

" I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and 
between thy seed and her seed ; and it shall bruise thy head, 
and thou shalt bruise his heel (Gren. iii. 15). 

This is regarded as a prophecy of Jesus. It is, however, 
darker and more obscure than the response of any heathen 
oracle on record. It is professedly designed to comfort Adam 
for transgressing against God ; and yet the only effect it could 
have produced was to excite wonder at what the Almighty 
meant. Its literal fulfillment has never been accomplished. 
If the Bible be true, the kingdom of Satan has triumphed 
over the kingdom of Grod. Where Christ has one follower, 
the Devil has a thousand. 

" In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed " 
(Gen. xii. 3). 

This is claimed to be a prophecy of Jesus, communicated 
to Abraham. This prophecy has never been fulfilled. All 
the families of the earth are not blessed by the coming of 
Christ. Myriads of families never heard his name : a host 
without number have been massacred in consequence of the 
system which he is said to have established ; thousands have 
rejected him in Christian countries; and, if the New Testa- 
ment be any authoriy, those who do so had better never have 
been born. How, then, are all the families of the earth 
blessed in Jesus ? 

" The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a law- 
giver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto 
him shall the gathering of the people be ^^ (Gen. xlix. 

1^)- . . . • 

This is another passage tortured into a prophecy of 

Jesus. The scepter departed from Judah before the time 
of Christ's presumed existence on earth. Judah had no 
lawgiver after Moses. Nor did Jesus gather the Jews to- 
gether; for they are a wandering and injured people to this 
day. 

" For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and 
the government shall be upon his shoulder : and his name 
shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the mighty God, the 



58 AN EYE-OPENER. 

everlasting Father, tlie Prince of peace. Of the increase of 
his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the 
throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to 
establish it with judgment and justice henceforth and for- 
ever " (Isa. ix. 6, 7). 

This passage, generally applied to Jesus by his followers, 
has no reference to him ; for it speaks of a child who was 
born, and not the one that was to be born. The inapplica- 
bility of the prophecy to any king of Judah, or to Jesus, 
needs no comment. 

" The Lord spake again unto Ahaz, saying, Ask of the 
Lord thy Grod a sign ; ask it either in the depths, or in the 
heights above. But Ahaz said, I will not ask, neither will 1 
tempt the Lord. . . . The Lord himself shall give you a 
sign : Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and 
shall call his name Immanuel. Butter and honey shall he 
eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the 
good ; for before the child shall know to refuse the evil, 
and choose the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be 
forsaken of both her kings'^ (Isa. vii. 10, 17). 

" And I took unto me faithful witnesses to record, — Uriah 
the priest, and Zachariah the son of Jeberechiah ; and I went 
in unto the prophetess, and she conceived and bare a son. 
Then said the Lord unto me, call his name Maher-shalal- 
hash baz. For before the child shall have knowledge to cry, 
My father and my mother, the riches of Damascus and the 
spoils of Samaria shall be taken away before the kings of 
Assyria " (Isa. viii. 4). 

This quotation shows that the passage applied to the 
Virgin Mary is misunderstood. It has no reference what- 
ever to her. It is a sign given to Ahaz, that both the ene- 
mies by which he was threatened should be deserted by their 
kings. A virgin was to have a son, who, in order that he 
might know how to refuse the evil^ and choose the good, 
was to live upon butter and honey ; and, before the child 
was to know the difference between good and evil, the proph- 
ecy was to be accomplished. Isaiah took advantage of an 
opportunity created by his prophecy, and seduced a virgin 
prophetess, and became the father of an illegitimate child. 

" Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the 



ON THE PROPHETS. 59 

sun be darkened, and tlie moon sliall not give her light, and 
the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven 
shall be shaken" (Matt. xxiv. 29). 

This is said to be a prophecy respecting the destruction of 
Jerusalem. Neither at that time, nor immediately after it, 
did stars fall from heaven, nor the sun and moon become 
dark. Ages have passed away ; and the stars are still in 
heaven, and the moon remains as bright as ever. 

Idolaters had their prophets as well as the Jews. Cicero 
was a prophet. " For prophecy," says he, "or the power of 
foretelling future events, is the greatest and most excellent 
i thing in the republic, and naturally allied to authority. Nor 
ido I thus think because I am a prophet myself, but be- 
cause it is absolutely necessary for us to think so " (De 
Legibus, Lib. 11). He, together with Cato, Demosthenes, and 
I others, guessed future occurrences with remarkable accuracy. 
I The following passage from the Media of Seneca, uttered 
fourteen hundred years before the discovery of America, so 
far exceeds any specific prediction found in the Bible, that, 
could the divine word claim any thing equal to it, it would 
! have been held up as an irrefutable demonstration of the 
I divine origin of the whole book. Priests would then have 
one prophecy whose authenticity could not be disputed, and 
whose fulfillment was truly remarkable. But, unfortunately 
I for them, it is only found in a Pagan production. The pas- 
i sage is as follows : " Times shall hereafter come, when the 
chain of things shall be relaxed by the ocean ; a vast country 
shall be revealed ; the sea shall unfold new worlds, and 
Thule cease to be the most distant country." 

Constantino, in his oration to the clergy, denounces Pytha- 
goras as an impostor, because he delivered to the Italians the 
same things which the prophets had foretold (Con Orat. 
ix). Pythagoras flourished five hundred and eighty-six 
years before Christ. He must have lived before many of 
the prophets ; and therefore, if his statement accords with 
theirs, he has as good claims as they have to divine inspira- 
tion. 

The following passage from " Prometheus Bound," a play 
written by iEschylus, and acted five hundred years before 
the Christian era, and founded on materials even at that time 



60 AN EYE-OPENER. 

of great antiquity, is a better prophecy of Christ's crucifixion 
than any Jewish prophets have given. Prometheus was a 
god and saviour ; and, while those whom he came to save were 
nailing his feet to the cross on Mount Caucasus he ex- 
claimed, — 

" I will speak, 
Not as upbraiding them, but my own gifts 
Commending. 'Twas I who brought sweet hope 
T' inhabit in their hearts : I brought 
The fire of heaven to animate their clay, 
And, through the clouds of barbarous ignorance, 
Diffused the beams of knowledge. In a word, 
Prometheus taught each useful art to men. 

* * * m 

See what, a god, I suffer from the gods ! 

For mercy to mankind I am not deemed 

Worthy of mercy ; but in this uncouth 

Appointment am fixed here 

A spectacle dishonorable to Jove. 

On the throne of heaven scarce was he seated. 

On the powers of heaven 

He showered his various benefits, thereby 

Confirming sov'reignty ; but for unhappy mortals 

Had no regard, but all the present race 

Willed to extirpate, and to form anew. 

None, save myself, opposed his will. I dared. 

And, boldly pleading, saved them from destruction, — 

Saved them from sinking to the realms of night ; 

For which offence, I bow beneath these pains. 

Dreadful to suffer, piteous to behold." 

Here is the whole tragedy of the cross known by heathens 
many hundred years before the Jewish prophets dreamed of 
such a contrivance. 

Many instances might be cited to show that the heathens 
were better prophets than the Jews ; but, as sufficient have 
been adduced for this purpose, we will merely give the proph- 
ecies respecting ^sculapius, from Ovid's Metamorphoses, as 
translated by Addison, and which is a better prophecy of 
Jesus than any inspired prophets have had ingenuity to fab- 
ricate. 

" Once, as the sacred infant she surveyed, 
The God was kindled in the raving maid : 
And thus she uttered her prophetic tale. 
Hail, great physician of the world) all hail I 



ON THE PROPHETS. 61 



Hail mighty infant, who in years to come 
Shall heal the nations, and defraud the tomb ! 
Swift be thy growth, thy triumphs unconfined; 
Make kingdoms thicker, and increase mankind. 
Thy daring arts shall animate the dead, 
And draw the thunder on the guilty head, 
Then shalt thou die, but from the dark abode 
Shalt rise victorious, and be twice a god." 



PAGAN MYTHOLOGY. 



The ancient religious notions of all countries are derived 
from one common source ; and although varying in different 
places, by reason of there being no other means than verbal 
communication, still a likeness is visible in them all. The 
Christian's Sun God (or Son of God) is the Osiris of the 
Egyptians, the Logos of the Greeks , and the Ckristna, of 
the Hindoos ] that is the glorious luminary which rules the 
day, the first object of worship among all nations of the earth ; 
the Demiurgus, or working god, by whom all things were 
supposed to be made. The frost-monsters which he is said 
to subdue are the icebergs and mountains of snow of the 
northern regions, which he dissolves by the power of his 
rays. His death is fabled to occur whenever he goes into 
the southern hemisphere, leaving the north to the imperial 
sway of the evil principle, Typhon, the old serpent^ called the 
devilj and satan. 

From the Hindoo Christna has undoubtedly arisen the 
application of Christ to the second person of the Christian 
trinity ; Jesus, the Christ, is the Scripture expression : that 
is,. he is the true Christna, the creator of the world, which 
some professors of Christianity, in accordance with the opin- 
ion of St. John, still believe to be the fact. Johnsays, " In 
the beginning was the Word [logos'], and the Word was with 
God, and the Word was God. All things were made by him ; 
and without him was not any thing made that was made.'' 
The rays of light depicted as issuing from the head of Jesus 
prove clearly that Christianity originally had reference to 
sun worship. 
62 



CREATION OF THE WOELD. 



-♦♦*- 



That the astro-theology of the Eastern nati©ns had exclu- 
sive allusion to physical objects, the elements, seasons, &c,, 
was well known to learned Jews. Maimonides says, " We 
must not, like the vulgar, understand literally what is written 
in the book of the creation (Genesis), otherwise our men of 
old would not have so earnestly recommended to conceal its 
meaning, and refrain from raising the allegorical veil which 
covereth the truth under it. The true meaning of the six 
days' work ought never to he divulged.'^ The treatises of 
Philo Judaeus have hardly any other subject than the alle- 
gorical explanation of the Jewish Scripture. The great Or- 
igen himself treated all these stories as astronomical emblems. 
" What man of sense," says he, " can persuade himself that 
there was a first, a second, and a third day, and that each of 
those days had a night, when there was yet neither sun, 
moon, or stars ? " 

The legend about the first man may have been taken from 
Apollodorus' fable of Prometheus, who made the first man 
and woman with clay ; or was the first creation in Grenesis, 
imitated from Plato's story of the Androginae, or double homo^ 
possessing both sexes. In Grenesis, the man had one of his 
ribs turned into the feminine. 

In the ancient Persian traditions, there were two distinct 
fables about the creation of man, from which those in Gene- 
sis appear to have been taken ; but the compiler of this 
book, knowing both of the stories, and being at a loss which 
to prefer, has foolishly mingled them together, yet still pre- 



64 AN EYE-OPENER. 

serving the two creations. Thus it seems pretty certain that 
the Jewish fable about the first man and woman is of Per- 
sian origin. Henry Lord, in a book written at Surat, on 
the cosmogonies of India and Persia, and dedicated to the 
Archbishop of Canterbury, says, " In the Persian cosmogo- 
ny, the name of the first man was Adomah, and of the woman, 
Hevali. From hence come the Adam and Eve of the Book 
of Genesis." Hevah is the name given to the woman in an 
English edition of the Bible, printed in. 1583.* 

In the Zoroastrian and Chaldean mysteries, the above-sup- 
posed originals of the human race were personifications of 
the zodiacal signs, Bootes and Virgo ; and their fall^ or ex- 
pulsion from the summer garden of fruits and flowers, was 
emblematical of the solar year, after the autumnal equinox. 
Anciently, in India and Chaldea, the phenomena of the starry 
heavens was called Aden. 

St. Augustine, in his '' City of Grod," allows that in his 
time the whole story about Adam and Eve, the serpent, and 
the garden of Eden, with its forbidden fruit, was considered 
as allegorical. There was not only one but two prohibited 
trees. The Emperor Julian, with that wisdom which char- 
acterized him, observed that, " If there ever had been, or 
could be a tree of knowledge, instead of God forbidding man 
to eat thereof, it would be that he would order him to eat the 
most." Rjasoni^ the real forbidden tree of priestcraft. 

The first four chapters, and the first three verses of that 
book, contain parts ot three, if not four, distinct fables, all 
evidently derived from different sources. The rest of this 
extraordinary medley, called the Old Testament, is made up 
of some dramatic fragments of the Egyptians and Persians 
(as the plagues, miracles, and the Book of Job), fabulous 
legends plagiarized by the Jews, barbarous narratives, and 
the rhapsodies of vagrant minstrels, who sung of past events, 
seemingly in the future tense." 



* The Abbe Pluche says, " Heva, or Heve, is the name of the common 
mother of mankind. It is from this word, which bignifies to live, that the 
Latins made their cevum, the life, and the are, which is a wish of good 
health." Sir W, Drummond, in speaking of the suppression of the aspii'ate 
in the Arabic, says, '" We ourselves suppress the sound of the aspirate iu 
Eve, Messiah, and many other words." 



JESUS CHEIST. 



Who was Jesus Christ ? According to the Bible, he was 
the divinity shrouded in human form. If his history, as 
unfolded in the four Grospels, be not a collection of abomina- 
ble falsehoods, he was the greatest person that ever lived. 
Omnipotent in power, unerring in wisdom, and unbounded 
in goodness, his character was awfully majestic and grand • and 
his deeds were stupendous and magnificent. At a glance he 
pierced the secrets of every heart. The winds grew still, the 
storms were quiet, and convulsed seas became calm at his 
word. At his command the dead sprang to life, the cripple 
leaped for joy, the blind saw, the dumb spake, and the dis- 
eased were cured. In deeds he had no equal, in eloquence 
1)0 superior. 

\ Now, if the character of Jesus was so august, and his mir- 
acles so wonderful, how is it that no contemporary writer has 
mentioned his name ? In eloquence he must have excelled 
Demosthenes ; in genius, Plato ; in works, Alexander : yet 
while luminous evidence leaves their existence without a 
doubt, his is unsubstantiated by any competent proof. Men 
of rare and extraordinary talents, who have graced different 
periods of the world's history, have stamped their genius 
upon the age in which they flourished with a power which 
succeeding years have not been able to erase, nor the convul- 
sions of falling empires to obliterate. Kingdoms may fall in 
dust, nations pass to oblivion, thrones crumble away, and the 
political world quiver to its center beneath the splendid, fear- 
ful, and unreposing heavings of revolutionary volcanoes ; but 
the names of genius live, like stars that never set, gilding 



66 AN EYE-OPENER. 

desolation's devouring work. This is the case with Homer, 
Demosthenes, and Tacitus. Glreece and Rome have share I 
the fate of millions of predecessors; but the names and works 
of their paragons of genius have been handed down to pos- 
terity without being questioned. Should the unfortunate 
period ever arrive when the American republic shall fall a 
prey to despotism, the names of Washington, Paine, Frank- 
lin, and Jefferson will live when the government is extin- 
guished, and the descendants of freemen are groaning in 
chains and ignominy. How is it possible, then, that a person 
embodying all the sublime and stupendous faculties of a (xod, 
holding heaven and earth in astonishment at his works, and 
living in an age of philosophy and history, should pass unno- 
ticed by all contemporary writers, remain unknown to more 
than half the globe, and be disbelieved in by more than two- 
thirds of those whom he came to save ? 

The silence of all contemporary writers respecting Jesus 
Christ is a notorious fact. Philo, a Jewish historian, who 
flourished about the Christian era; Seneca, who lived about 
the time of Christ ; Plutarch and Juvenal, who wrote a hun- 
dred years after the period assigned him ; Livy and Don 
Cassius, who wrote respecting the age in which he is said to 
have lived ; Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and Lucian, who lived in 
the first century, make no allusion to his works, nor even 
mention his name. Jews, Greeks, and Romans, whether 
philosophers, poets, or historians, though they record the vir- 
tues and feats of the celebrated characters of the age, pass 
over the history of Jesus as a person of whom they had no 
knowledge. Had he possessed the virtue of a Grod, or the 
mental endowments of distinguished philosophers, no doubt 
would have remained of his ever having existed. 

The suspicion which is cast upon the actual existence of 
Jesus by the obscurity in which it is involved, is further 
confirmed by the silence of the acts of Pilate. The ancient 
Romans were particularly anxious to preserve the memory of 
the remarkable events which occurred in the empire. For 
this purpose the governor of each province was required to 
keep a book in which to register the acts of the government 
and the occurrences of the people, and to report them to the 
emperor at Rome. Conformably with this usage, Pontius 



JESUS CHRIST. 67 

Pilate kept a memoir of Jewish affairs, which book was called 
Acti Pilati. All such registers were deposited among the 
archives of the government, in order to aid historians to 
compose their works with accuracy. Now, it is a fact which 
defies the power of refutation, that no reference to Jesus has 
ever been discovered in these records, and that Josephus, 
Tacitus, Seneca, Plutarch, and other writers, who must have 
had access to them, record no allusion to him, or any act of 
he Roman government respecting him. It is therefore a 
liiatter of uncertainty if such a person as Jesus ever lived ; 
or, if he did live, it is certain that he was not remarkable for 
any distinguished achievement, but lived in great obscurity, 
and died unknown. 

Honest inquirers after truth have often been misled, and 
well-meaning persons deluded, by crafty interpolations of 
unprincipled bigots during the dark ages of the church, as 
well as previous to its establishment. The monks, having in 
their possession all the Greek and Latin authors, enjoyed 
every facility to forge and interpolate any work they pleased ; 
and the result shows they wanted no inclination to improve 
the opportunity to a daring extent. Under the rascally idea 
that the end sanctified the means, they openly vindicated 
pious fraud, and sacrilegiously obliterated all evidence 
against Christianity, and created all the proof in its favor 
that ingenuity and hypocrisy could devise. Moore, in his 
remarks on Anacreon, says, " The G-reek ecclesiastics of the 
early ages, conscious of inferiority to their prototype (An- 
acreon's poems), and determined on removing the possibility 
of a comparison, under a semblance of moral zeal destroyed 
the most exquisite treasures of antiquity. Sappho and Al- 
caeus were among the victims of this violation ; and the 
sweetest flowers of Grecian literature fell beneath the rude 
hand of ecclesiastical presumption. It is true, they pretended 
that this sacrifice of genius was canonized by the interests 
of religion " During this period, according to Christian 
writers, the epistles of Paul to Laodicea, and many other let- 
ters and works, were forged. Not only all ancient history 
was interpolated, but even the Bible itself. Origen is 
charged with having corrupted the Greek version. T.he 
council held at Florence, in 1439, for the purpose of estab' 



68 AN EYE-OPENER. 

lishing a union between the Greek and Latin churches, 
resolved that the Greeks should alter their manuscript from 
the Latin. Many ancient manuscripts have marks of era- 
sures. Words, sentences, and whole chapters have been 
blotted out, and other words written in their place. The 
difference between the Jewish and Samaritan Pentateuch is 
so great that the very ablest Bible critics acknowledge that 
either the Jews or Samaritans have been guilty of wilful cor- 
ruptions. These are not gratuitous assumptions, but unde- 
niable facts admitted, by the defenders of the Christian 
fraud. 

The only historians relied upon by Christians to prove the 
actual existence of Jesus are Josephus and Tacitus. The 
passage in the former is an interpolation ; and that in the lat- 
ter, if not an interpolation, overthrows the Bible account of 
Christianity. The following is the principal passage in 
Josephus : — 

" Now there was, about this time, Jesus, a wise man, if it 
be lawful to call him a man ; for he performed many won- 
derful works. He was the teacher of such men as received 
the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him many of the 
Jews, and also many of the Gentiles. This was the Christ. 
And when Pilate, at the instigation of the principal men, had 
condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him at the 
first did not cease to adhere to him ; for he appeared to them 
alive again on the third day, the divine prophets having 
foretold this, and ten thousand other wonderful things con- 
cerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named, subsist 
to this day." 

This passage bears such evident marks of fraud upon its 
face, that no person of common intelligence and honesty can 
ascribe it to the pen of Josephus without singular and pre- 
posterous credulity. .In the works attributed to Justin Mar- 
tyr, Clement of Alexandria, Tertulian, Origen, Chrysostom, 
and Photius, which embody all the evidences of Christianity 
known in their day, no reference is made to it. In their 
enthusiastic eagerness to fortify their arguments by the 
strongest authority, they would never have overlooked such 
a powerful corroboration as this passage affords, if it existed. 
The suspicion naturally cast upon it by the remarkable and 



JESUS CHRIST. 69 

curious inadvertence of the earliest and most bigoted defend- 
ers of the Christian system is confirmed by indisputable 
facts. It is not the style of Josephus. It abruptly inter- 
rupts the regular history. It is the language of one who 
believed in the divine nature of Christ, antl not the expres- 
sion of a person rigidly attached to the Jewish religion. It 
is an actual and unqualified renunciation of Judaism, and an 
open avowal of Christianity. Josephus, who was born thir- 
ty-seven years after the Christian era, and wrote at the close 
of the first century, was an inflexible and uncompromising 
Jew. He fought for his faith, wrote in its defence, and 
died in its belief. It is evident, from his life and conduct, 
that he never wrote this passage ; and the belief that he did 
affords melancholy proof how easy credulity may be imposed 
upon, and of what gross and daring interpolation priests have 
been guilty. The other passages found in Josephus are of 
less importance, but liable to the same objections. 

Tacitus, a Roman orator and historian who flourished in ly^ 
the second century, in his history of the Roman emperors 
and annals, affords the most plausible proof of the real exist- 
ence of Jesus. He says, " But neither human assistance nor 
largess of the emperor, nor all the atonement offered to the 
gods, availed : the infamy of the horrible transaction still 
adhered to him. To suppress, if possible, the common 
rumor, Nero procured others to be accused, and punished 
with exquisite torture a race of men detested for their evil 
practices^ who were commonly known hij the name of Chris- 
tians. The author of that sect was Christus, who, in the 
reign of Tiberius, was punished by death as a criminal, by 
the procurator Pontius Pilate. But this pestilent supersti- 
tion, though checked for a while, broke out al'resh, not only 
in Judea, where the evil first originated, but even in the city, 
— the common sink into which every thing filthy and abomi- 
nable flows from all quarters of theworld. At first those only 
were apprehended who confessed themselves of that sect, 
afterwards a vast multitude discovered hy therh, all of whom 
were condemned, not so much for the crime of burning the 
city, as for their enmity to manhind. The executions were 
so contrived as to expose them to derision and contempt. 
Some were covered with skins of wild beasts, that they 



70 AN EYE-OPENER. 

might be torn to pieces by dogs ; some were crucified ; while 
others, having been daubed over by combustible materials, 
were set up as lights at the night time, and thus burnt to 
death. For these spectacles, Nero gave his own garden, and 
at the same time exhibited there the diversions of the circus. 
Sometimes standing in the crowd as a spectator, in the habit 
of a charioteer, and at other times driving a chariot himself, 
until at length these men, tJiough really criminal and deserv- 
ing exemi^lary punishment^ began to be commiserated, as 
people who were destroyed, not out of regard to public vvel- 
fare, but only to gratify the cruelty of one man.'' 

This passage is supposed by impartial authority to be gen- 
uine ] because it so closely resembles the peculiar and elegant 
style of Tacitus, that it must be acknowledged, if an inter- 
polation, it is artfully and masterly achieved. But in the 
absence of that abundant and incontestable proof which might 
reasonably be expected from writers contemporaneous with 
the origin and early advancement of Christianity, it is easier 
to believe it an interpolation than account for ih.Q extraordi- 
nary silence of all historians respecting so wonderful a person- 
age, and such convulsions and revolutions as his system 
produced. Besides this fact, Tertulian, who quotes largely 
from Tacitus ; Clement Alexandria, who adduced all the pagan 
authorities that he could torture into a recognition of Christ 
or his followers ; Eusebius, who forged the passages in Jose- 
phus ', the correspondence of Christ and Abgaius, and other 
pious evidences of Christianity ; a-nd all other writers prior to 
the 15th century, never mention such a passage. Melito, 
Bishop of Sardis, informs us that the Christians had enjoyed 
the favor of the Roman government, and that Christianity 
did not originate in Judea, or in any province subject to the 
Roman empire. In short, the passage is either genuine or 
an interpolation. If it be an interpolation, then the name 
of Christ is not mentioned by any historian in the first cen- 
tury. But if it be genuine, then Christians were a race of 
men detested for their evil practices : they were atrocious 
enemies to mankind ', they were really criminal, and deserv- 
ing exemplary punishment ; and they lived in such secrecy 
that but few of them were known. One or the other of 
these conclusions is irresistible. Which is the least disad- 



JESUS CHRIST. 71 

vantageous to Christianity ? Let priests, whose reverence 
would be overthrown, and whose income diminished by the 
adoption of either sentiment, determine for themselves. It 
would appear to me that the more foolish and barefaced the 
forgery, the better it would be believed in those early times ; 
for, let any one get the Apocryphal Testament, and see the 
number of Acts, Grospels, and Epistles mentioned that are 
obsolete, besides hundreds of others that are not men- 
tioned ; and, if they were no better than what we have, I am 
sure every Christian ought to be ashamed of them. I would 
advise every Christian to examine those early writings ; and, 
if he does not feel ashamed of Christianity, he has no shame 
in him. 

Nothing pleased the Christian people in those early times 
but casting out devils, or catching devils by ih.e nose, like 
St. Dunstan, who could rob, murder, and pray at the same 
time. Be ashamed, ye Christians, if ye have any shame, to 
believe that the Mover, First Cause, Preserver, Governor, 
mighty Architect of all these worlds around us would send 
devils on earth, to be jumping in and out of his people. 
Where are these devils in our time ? Eusebius says, there 
were some devils cast out in his time ; that is, in the time 
of Constantine the Grreat : and he is the only authentic his- 
torian the Church can boast of, for Origen turned Pagan in 
the latter end of his days. What can any Christian think of 
the story of Christ, driving the devils out of the man into the 
hogs ? Does it make people honester or better to believe 
such stories? St. Clemens Romanus, bishop of Kome, A.D. 
91, says, that Simon Magus, of the New Testament, could 
make himself invisible when and to whom he pleased. He 
created a man out of air, who passed through rocks and. 
mountains, flew along in the air : threw himself from preci- 
pices, &c., without being injured : he flung himself in the 
fire without being burned ; bolts and chains were impotent to 
detain him ; he animated statues, so that they appeared to 
the beholder like men and women ; he walked through the 
streets attended by strange figures, which he said were the 
souls of people departed ; he made trees spring up where he 
pleased, and made a sickle mow corn twice as fast as the 
most industrious reaper. Here is a specimen of the writings 



72 AN EYE-OPENER. 

of the holy fathers; he makes Simon Magus beat God. 
Grod made man out of dust; but Simon made man out of air. 
Comment is useless. 

Bat I find Pagans were as smart at working miracles as 
Jesus Christ. It is related by Tacitus, the best historian of 
antiquity, that when Vespasian, the emperor, was staying at 
Alexandria, a blind man came to him, and told him^ the god 
Serapis had directed him to apply to him to anoint his eyes : 
he did ; and the man received his sight. A lame man came 
forward at the same time, and desired Vespasian to touch 
his hands with his foot: he did; and the man was healed. 
We find Apollonius, who lived in the reign of Augustus, a 
pagan, working miracles, and raising the dead. One of his 
miracles was raising a young woman to life, who died when 
on the point of being married. Apollonius met the corpse, 
told them to put down the bier, and the lover to dry his 
tears. He asked the name of the girl, uttered some mystical 
words, and called her name, when she arose, and went with 
her friends. Here you see one of the most holy fathers of 
the Church giving an account of Simon Magus ; but, as E,ev. 
Robert Taylor remarks, in his " Diegesis," when Constantine 
became a Christian writer and preacher, and the world then, 
as before, abounding with heretics, who denied the existence 
of Christ, as he had all the records of the Empire in his 
possession, he ought to htive brought them forward. The 
account of those put to death in Pontius Pilate's time 
would have been convincing. But he had a stronger ar- 
gument ; for he ordered their heads to be cut ofi", and their 
books burnt. So much for your first Christian Emperor's 
evidences. 

After examining sacred and profane history carefully, I 
came to the conclusion, at last, that one person knew as much 
about futurity, or hereafter, as another. I have taken some 
pains to examine ecclesiastical history, to see if there was any 
proof of the existence of Jesus Christ. When I examine the 
first century, I find chaos ; when I examine the second, i • 
find chaos and a little forgery ; when I come to the third, 
I find wholesale forgery, with a little truth. I find Eusebius 
stating that the ancient Theraputs were Christians, and that 
their ancient writings were our Grospels and Epistles. Euse- 



JESUS CHRIST. 73 

bins also, in his sixteenth chapter of his second book of ec- 
clesiastical history, gives us a document written by Philo, the 
Jew, who flourished about the year 30. It seems that he 
belonged to the Theraputs, or Essenes, or Ascetics, or Eccle- 
siastics, or Monks, by all which names they were called. 
They had a monastery at Alexandria, which existed for ages 
before the time of Augustus, but began to flourish in his 
time. There were men of all religions in this monastery ; 
Brahmins from the East, who believed in Chrisna. It seems 
that this Chrisna was crucified between two thieves. Bis 
father was a carpenter ; and he had been worshiped in the 
East Indies ages before there were Pythagorists, Platonists, 
Pagans, or Jews. Philo says they examined the whole of 
them, to make one good religion out of them all. They were 
not allowed to have wives ; and some of them made eunuchs 
of themselves. When anyone of property joined them, he 
was obliged to give it up to them. They sent out missiona- 
ries, and had regularly established orders amongst them- 
selves, — bishops, deacons, and priests. As St. Paul says of 
himself, he is a dea-con : but Paul began on his own hook ; 
and you find him quarreling with, and being more successful 
than, the others, calling them heretics. He will tell you 
he preached Christ crucified ; others of them did not : nor 
did the learned Christians of the first century believe Christ 
ever existed, only in principle, but that the doctrine was to 
be received in an allegorical sense. For the most part of the 
writings of the Essenes or Theraputs were mystical, and, as 
they said themselves, required themselves to explain them. 
The word Theraput signifies doctor in Grreek, and Essenes 
in Egyptian; for they also studied medicine, and were 
doubtless the first teachers and preachers of the Christian 
religion. This is acknowledged by Origen, Eusebius, Mos- 
heim, Dr. Lardner, and other ecclesiastical writers. And 
that Jesus Christ, of the New Testament, never was in exist- 
ence is plain to any one who will take the trouble to exam- 
ine for himself. There is one plain question I ask : Does any 
one believe that a smart man as Jesus Christ was said to 
have been would be on the earth thirty-three years without 
writing something of himself ? If he had been on earth, he 
might have written something, and not left us, as we are at 



74 AN EYE-OPENER. 

present, with nothing but hearsay evidence ; and these 
G-ospels, too, written in foreign languages, — not one of them 
in the language of Judea, where the transactions are said to 
have happened ! A pretty story, indeed ! God must be 
crucified in Judea ; and the historians must write an account 
of it in Grreek and Egyptian, but none in the tongue of the 
country where it happened. 



MIEACLES, 



The power of working miracles has been arrogated by 
impostors of all nations and ages. Kings and pbilosophers, 
as well as priests, have practiced the imposition to a daring 
extent. Bible prophets and apostles, borrowing the idea 
from the pagans, have carried this absurdity to a greater 
pitch of improvement than it ever obtained before their time. 
Not content with making the living perform miracles, they 
have even attributed the power to the dead. The tombs of 
canonized saints, up to the days of Abbe Louis, 1732, were 
supposed to possess this virtue. To what extent they would 
have improved this curious art, had it not been for the ob- 
struction of science and liberty, it is impossible to conceive. 

A miracle is contrary to nature, and therefore a wrong. 
If nature be right, any thing contrary to it must be wrong. 
To attribute, therefore, the great number of miracles recorded 
in the Bible to the agency of God is to make him exceeding- 
ly wicked and sinful. 

Miracles are contradicted by experience, and therefore no 
obligation exists to believe them. We know that the sun 
rises and sets ; that the darkness of night never happens at 
mid-day; that the dead never rise from the grave. Now, 
when we are told that the sun stopped in its course, that the 
darkness of night happened at mid-day, and that the dead 
rose from their graves, as these statements contradict the 
experience of every day, we ought to believe the testimony 
of our senses in preference to them. But, as it perfectly 
accords with our daily experience that men lie, fabricate, and 
impose on the credulous, we ought rather to believe that 

76 



76 AN EYE-OPENER. 

those who profess to perform miracles are liars and impostors 
than that they are capable of doing what they profess. Were 
it agreeable to our experience that men professing to be in- 
spired did perform miracles, it would prove that they had 
supernatural endowments. But, as such a belief contradicts 
our experience, as we never see them do so, we ought to 
believe our own senses in disbelieving them. Nature, obser- 
vation, and experience, so far as they are proof, prove that 
miracles never were performed. 

iMiracles are a suspension of the laws of nature; and there- 
fore no person can tell when they take place. As we do not 
know all the laws of nature, we are unoble to tell when they 
are suspended. Circumstances as extraordinary as any events 
related in the Bible have at times been produced by the 
natural operation of the laws of nature. Meteoric showers 
have illuminated the heavens ; fresh volcanoes have burst 
forth ; cities have suddenly disappeared ; and islands arisen 
from the ocean : yet all these wonderful phenomena are the 
results of natural causes. A man acquainted with gunpow- 
der, with the science of chemistry and medicine, or with the 
arts of jugglery, might go among an ignorant and supersti- 
tious people, and perform, in their estimation, as wonderful 
miracles as the prophets and apostles ; and yet all he did 
would be consonant with the laws of nature, and never in 
violation of them. To those unacquainted with the laws 
of nature, they would appear to involve a suspension of 
them ; but, to all others, they would appear either natural 
and invariable results of those laws, or imposing and artfal 
tricks. 

Miracles performed by Jesus made no, or very few, con- 
verts ; and therefore they are not entitled to our belief. 
When miracles do not convert those who see them, it can not 
be expected that they will convert those who merely hear of 
them. If the persons who saw the miracles of Christ, among 
whom they were performed, denounced him as an impostor, 
and subjected him to an ignominious death, it is presumptive 
proof that he is an impostor, and undeserving confidence. 
Now, though Jesus is said to have raised the dead, cured 
diseases, controlled the elements of nature ; though the 
graves are said to have opened, the rocks to have been rent, 



MIRACLES. 77 

and the heavens to have been darkened at his crucifixion, 
yet the very persons who witnessed these things, who were 
the best judges of them, and, though superstitious, did not 
believe them sufficiently to testify of his divinity, what right 
have we ? 

The same reason exists now for the performance of mira- 
cles as did in any former period. What was the object of 
miracles ? Was it to mitigate suffering ? Is there not the 
same demand for benevolence now that there ever was ? Was 
it to dispel doubt about the divine origin of the messenger ? 
Does not the same doubt exist ? and is it not as necessary to 
dispel doubt in one period as in another ? Was it to estab- 
lish Christianity ? But have they ever done it ? Is not Chris- 
tianity a controvertible subject? Has not the great body of 
mankind neglected it? Whatever, then, be the object of 
miracles, whether it be to mitigate suffering, dispel doubt, or 
establish Christianity, the same reason now exists that ever did. 
If miracles were ever performed, unless God is an irrational 
being, he would have them performed now. 

Admitting that miracles were performed, and the Bible is 
authority, yet still they are no proof of a man being divinely 
commissioned. Magicians, witches, false prophets, are all 
said to perform miracles. " Moses and Aaron did so as the 
Lord commanded : and he lifted up the rod, and smote the 
waters that were in the rivers, in the sight of Pharaoh, and 
in the sight of his servants ; and all the waters that were in 
the rivers were turned into blood. • • • And the magicians of 
Egypt did so with their enchantments^' (Ex. vii. 20, 22). 
The miracle said to be performed by magicians surpassed the 
one attributed to Moses. The latter turned the water into 
blood ; while the former had to create the water, and turn it 
into blood. In 1 Sam. xxviii. 7-25, is an account of the res- 
urrection of Samuel by a witch. " The Devil taketh him into 
an exceeding high mountain, and showeth him all the 
kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them '' (Matt. iv. 
8). Here is an extraordinary miracle performed by the 
Devil. He showed Jesus, from a mountain in Judea, all the 
kingdoms of the world; and, as the world is round, must have 
looked through every part of it. " There shall arise false 
Christs and false prophets, and shall, show great signs and 




78 AN EYE-OPENER. 

wonders^ '(Matt. xxiv. 24). Now, unless it can be shown 
that false Christs, false prophets, witches, magicians, and 
devils are inspired by heaven, miracles are no proof of in- 
spiration. 

A common saying among the ancient Greeks was, " Mir- 
acles for fools." An expression nearly similar was prover- 
bial among the Romans. It was this : " The vulgar desire 
to be deceived, let them be deceived." Paul inculcates the 
same sentiment. He boasts of having lied to the glory of 
Grod ; of having made converts by being crafty, and catching 
them with guile (see 2 Cor. xii. 16 ; Rom. iii. 7 ; 1 Cor. 
i. 27) ; &c., &c. Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople, 
says, " Great is the force of deceit, provided it be not used 
with treacherous intent." St. Hermas, an apostolic father, 
says, " he always lived in dissimulation, and affirmed a lie 
for truth to all men ; and no man contradicted me, but all gave 
credit to my word." The cardinal then replied, " Take 
care, from henceforth, that even those things which thou hast 
formerly spoken falsely for the sake of thy business [preach- 
ing] may by thy present truth, receive credit," (see Hermas 
Pastor, translated by Bishop Wake). These curious facts 
account for the miracles, prophecies, and other inconsisten- 
cies of the New Testament. 

The miracles of the heathen are as well attested as those 
of the Bible. We will notice a few. Esculapius raised 
Hyppolytus and Tyndarus from the dead. Rome was cured 
of a plague through his agency. An embassy of ten senators 
went in quest of him at Epidaurus j and the plague was 
stayed. Long after his death, Asclipigenia, the daughter of 
Archiades and Plutarcha, was publicly cured of a grievous 
distemper while her parent was praying to Esculapius for 
that purpose in the temple at Athens, dedicated to him. Jus- 
tin Martyr says, "As to our Jesus curing the lame and par- 
alytic, and such as were cripple from their birth, this is little 
more than what you say of Esculapius." Hercules, when but 
an hour old, strangled two serpents, which were sent to destroy 
him. In one night, he begat fifty children. Chrisna, when 
a boy, slew the terrible serpent Caliya ; at seven years old he 
raised a mountain on his little finger, and frequently afterwards 
raised the dead, soine times the Devil. St. Gregory, while a 



MIRACLES. 79 

heathen, cast out a devil from a woman who made an assault 
upon his innocence. 

Such are a few instances of miracles performed by pagans. 
Although they were frauds, yet those who saw them per- 
formed never suspected they were. Nations believed their 
reality, and held the base impostors in the profoundest rever- 
ence. Temples were frequently erected to their memory, 
and their tombs made the altars of devotion. Honest men 
have been doomed to ignominy ; while reverend rogues and 
sanctimonious hypocrites have fattened on the labor of the 
duped, and extorted their homage after the grave fettered 
their impious lips. 



POPEEY. 



Its two boasted attributes are infallihility^ and universal, 
perpetual, unchangeable identity. Hence it follows tbat it 
remains unaltered by difference of place and succession of 
seasons ; consequently Popery is tbe same in the nineteenth 
century in America as in the dark ages in Italy and Europe. 
Persons who suppose that monks and nuns are one jot re- 
formed ; that convents are afc all purified ; that Romish frauds 
are less practiced ] that their ceremonial mummery is rendered 
more scriptural, and less idolatrous -, that their festivals are 
scenes of less sensuality ; that auricular confession is not 
equally impure ; that indulgences for sin are not trafficked ', 
that purgatory is less proclaimed, more rarely sold, and less 
believed in ; that the myriads of Papists are more enlightened ; 
and that the mass, with its idolatrous and irrational blasphe- 
my, is not equally the corner-stone of the Papal hierarchy as 
in all anterior ages, — are mistaken ; and they who fancy that 
Ivoman priests and Jesuit friars are one particle superior in 
morality or religion to their fellow-craftsmen in Spain and 
Italy, or as they were three hundred years ago, deceive them- 
selves. Infallible testimony can be adduced at any time to 
demonstrate the truth. The apparent exterior amendment is 
a total delusion. " The nature of their abominable priest- 
craft is not altered ; for even in this country, where our free 
institutions check presumption, and the press terrifies their 
most loathsome monsters from the light of day, we behold 
things which fire our hearts with indignation." 

The following is Garibaldi's opinion of Popery. Said he, 
" In th« midst of Italy, at its very heart, there is a cancer 
80 



POPERY. 



81 



called Popery, an impostor called Popery. We have still a 
formidable enemy, — the more formidable because it exists 
among the ignorant classes, where it rules by falsehood ; be- 
cause it is sacrilegiously covered with the cloak of religion. 
Its smile is the smile of Satan. This enemy, young men, is 
the priest, — the priest, with few exceptions." 

That the restraining of the mind of man, which the Church 
of Rome strives to, has an evil consequence ; the tyranny 
that is used over the Catholic mind makes him a continual 
slave; fasting ; praying from a book; confessing his sins (per- 
haps to a worse man than himself) ; hearing prayers in a lan- 
guage he don't understand, under pain of mortal sin, — all 
shows that the Church aims at complete tyranny over the 
mind. But for morals, let any one read history, and he will 
see, that, in Catholic times, a decent woman could not walk 
the streets ; murders, robbery, and uncleanness were the 
order of the day amongst the rich and poor ; the popes and 
bishops headed armies : power and money is the sole aim of 
the Church. Read the history of Europe. Can it be possi- 
ble that men professing sanctity could be guilty of such 
unjust actions, enough to fill hundreds of volumes ? Look at 
the pope and the King of France murdering, torturing, and 
robbing the Knight Templars through the false accusation of 
two of their unworthy members who had been expelled. 
But the chief reason for torturing them was, they were 
worth robbing. But even poverty was no protection in those 
times ; for Pope Innocent the Third, in the twelfth century, 
sent St. Dominick with an army to destroy the Albigenses 
because they would not yield to his supremacy; and his 
saintship murdered the people so well, that he was canonized 
in Rome. The Inquisitors that were sent to examine them 
said they were a quiet, honest, industrious people, believed 
the Bible, but would not believe in the pope : so St. Domi- 
nick murdered them. But there were other vagabond 
saints as well as he. St. George, who was killed in a 
brawl in Macedon, was given by the pope to England as 
their patron saint. But the boldest falsehood of all is to tell 
the people the Church is now as she always was. Before the 
year 600, there was no pope : there were the seven bishops or 
churches of Christendom. In 666 the mass was ordered to 



82 AN EYE-OPENER. 

be read in Latin. About tbe eighth century, images began 
to be used -, and about the same time a monk in Campaign 
advanced the arguments of transubstantiation, which the 
Church did not sanctify till 1215, under Pope Innocent 
the Third, at the fourth council of Lanterns. It was at the 
twelfth general council that the bread and wine was made the 
flesh and blood of Christ, and so it remained till the Council 
of Trent, when they added the soul and divinity : also pur- 
gatory was invented at the Council of Constance in 1420 ; 
and the Church made more money by that invention than all 
the rest. In 1811, at the Council of Bavaria, baptizing was 
changed from dipping to sprinkling. Calvin, with some of 
the rest of the Reformers, did not like to go in the water : so 
they adopted sprinkling. But, about the seventeenth century, 
the assembly met to examine whether they would adopt sprin- 
kling or dipping. There were eighteen for sprinkling, and 
eighteen for dipping. Mr. Toplady being president, he 
gave in favor of sprinkling : so you see how these matters 
of religious faith, that people depend on for their chance of 
salvation, have been invented, turned, tossed, &c. 

' A horrible discovery has been made at the church of the 
village of Boulogne, between Paris and St. Cloud, which is 
now under repair. Underneath the altar of the Virgin, there 
has been found the body of a young girl of fourteen, who 
disappeared three years ago, and of whom her parents, 
inhabitants of the place, have never since had any news. 
The neighborhood is in a state of great excitement on the 
subject ; but the Paris journals will not be allowed to speak 
of it. The girl is described as having been very beautiful, 
and precociously developed. She had been to her first con- 
fession shortly before her disappearance. — Late English 
Paper, 1860. 

Popery ! read thy tale 

Of every distant age and clime and nation, 

Then say what gratitude it claims from man ; 

Or rather say what climes it has not cursed 

With bigotry and persecution's rod ; 

Or say when priests and prophets ruled a land, 

And people mourned not, drenched in bitter tears, 

Wrung by their sufferings. Or ask you where 

The soil was unpolluted with the blood of thy victims 1 



THE PEIESTHOOD. 



Priestly usurpation has been essentially the same in all 
countries. Ecclesiastical organization has, always has had, 
and must always have, dommdon of man over man as its end, 
scope, object, and purpose. From the most ancient historic 
times, among the Hindoos and Egyptians, who believed 
themselves to have been the first inhabitants of this earth, 
millions of years before the Jewish date of the creation, 
down to our own times, and among a people who boast of 
their superior intelligence and civilization, there has always 
been a class who have arrogated to themselves spiritual au- 
thority and power over their fellow-mortals, to threaten and 
command. And rarely has this thirst for spiritual power 
been distinct from the lust of dominion and rule in temporal 
things. 

Operating on the higher departments of our mental consti- 
tution, marvelousness, conscientiousness, hope, and rever- 
ence ) dealing with invisible and imaginary terrors and 
allurements, which always assume gigantic magnitude, and 
claim imperious ascendency over the mind ; secured by their 
position from the necessity of physical labor, and having all 
their time in which to acquire whatever knowledge might be 
obtained by study ; carefully keeping the people in ignorance, 
but occupying their minds with incomprehensible mysteries 
symbolized by dazzling rites and ceremonies, and issuing 
from sanctuaries into which the profane feet of the masses 
might not enter; holding a language for sacred purposes 
different from the vernacular of common speech ; having fa- 
miliar intercourse with universal society, and being received 



84 AN EYE-OPENER. 

and feared on account of a supposed attending divinity ever 
present with them, — they have been enabled to effect any 
purpose however horrible. The ignorance and credulity of 
the people have been at all periods practiced upon by these 
artful or self-deluded men. 

In India, the Hindoos believed that their Brahmins, the 
priests, issued from the mouth of Brahm in a supernatural 
manne'r. They were endowed with exclusive privileges 
above all* others. The civil law, knowledge of medicine, and 
what is taught of astronomy and astrology, are all derived 
from the sacred books, which the priests alone are allowed 
to study or explain. Hence they are the only lawyers and 
judges, the only physicians ; penances and religious cere- 
monies being imposed as remedies for sickness, which is con- 
sidered a punishment for transgression. They only may 
make astronomical calculations, and predict future events by 
the stars. This exclusive possession of such knowledge as 
exists, has, of course, been a source of perpetual emolument 
to this priestly caste. No greater crime is known on earth 
than killing a Brahmin. The king himself must never put 
one to death, though he be convicted of all possible crimes ; 
and even to kill one accidentally must be atoned for by terri- 
ble penalties. Some of them are believed to be incarnated 
deities; and as they appear in public, attended by a magnifi- 
cent retinue and equipage, the inferior castes retire to a dis- 
tance, lest their shadows should happen to touch them, or the 
consecrated air be polluted by inferior breath. To bestow 
alms upon them, or make them heirs of worldly wealth, is 
deemed an act of highest piety, and the wealth of the universe 
is deemed to belong in effect to the Brahmins, He who shall 
attempt to instruct a Brahmin as to his duty shall have hot oil 
dropped into his mouth and ears ; and, for speaking disre- 
spectfully of one, an iron style ten fingers long shall be 
thrust red-hot into his mouth. No priesthood in the annals 
of the world have retained so much power, for such a long 
series of centuries, as the Brahmins. 

The Egyptian States, like their Ethiopian ancestors, were 
originally governed by priests only. Each district had a 
high priest, who reigned in the name of some god, and had 
subordinate priests under him. And, when the caste of 



THE PRIESTHOOD. 85 

warriors attained to tlie dignity of kings, the priests kept 
them in almost complete dependence, not allowing them of 
their own will or judgment to administer punishment, but 
only in conformity to laws which the gods had prescribed 
through the priests. The affairs of the State and the army, 
the food upon the royal table, as well as the religious cere- 
monies to be performed in the royal household, were all under 
the arbitrary direction of the priests. None but the sons of 
high priests were allowed to be in attendance upon the royal 
person. 

The priestly families were the highest and wealthiest in 
the country. 

They were exempted from taxation ; and one-third of the 
land of Egypt was allotted to them. The immense revenues 
drawn from the large landed property belonging to every 
temple were drawn by the priests, and transmitted to their 
posterity as a perpetual inheritance In addition to their 
fixed salaries, all the daily sacrifices and ofierings of fruit and 
grain at the temples were theirs; and they also carried on 
many profitable branches of business. As in India, so in 
Egypt, the priests were the judges, the physicians, and the 
only possessors of any thing like scientific knowledge. This 
was believed by the people to be by direct revelation from 
the gods ; and the use made by the priests of what knowl- 
edge they did possess seemed to their simple, credulous 
dupes like divination and magic. In all religious observ- 
ances, the priests alone understood the meaning of what 
they witnessed; their theological theories being carefully 
hidden under a thick veil of mysterious emblems. They, 
too, had a hieroglyphical language applied to all religious 
and scientific subjects, known only to the priests, and en- 
tirely difi"erent from that used for social and commercial pur- 
poses. 

In China and Thibet, the spiritual hierarchy rules all tem- 
poral things. The greatest name in China is Confucius, the 
compiler of their sacred books ; but, as he prescribed no 
elaborate ceremonials by which the sinner could reconcile 
himself with divine powers, the Priests of Fo, or Buddha, 
find congenial soil in the uncultivated minds of the people, 
wherein to cultivate their dogmas, and by them rule the 



86 AN EYE-OPENER. 

millions. " Lama/^ means " pastor of souls," and is the name 
applied to all the priests. The grand lama is at the head 
01 all ecclesiastical and civil affairs in Thibet When he 
dies, his soul is supposed to enter into some one of the infe- 
rior lamas ; and the illustrious successor is determined by 
writing the names of candidates on little golden fish, shaking 
them m an urn, and the lirst one taken out is proclaimed 
grand lama. He is regarded as the vicegerent of Grod, 
With power to dispense divine blessings on whomsoever he 
will, — either directly, or through the medium of subordinate 
lamas. Miraculous powers are ascribed to him, and de- 
voutly believed by the people. Crowds of pilgrims^ princes 
and those of meanest rank alike, bring him offerings, pay 
him homage, and prostrate themselves before him. Though 
Thibet is politically subject to China, the Chinese emperor 
is subject to the grand lama in all ecclesiastical matters. 
The lamas are the only physicians, astronomers, architects, 
sculptors, and painters. As all Buddhists believe thatnearly 
all departed souls remain for a while in regions of punishment, 
undergoing a process of purification by suflering, and that 
the prayers of the living are accepted in lieu of this suftering, 
by the higher Power, the priests derive a lucrative income 
from teaching the most efiicacious forms of prayer and cere- 
monies ; it being taught that they are divinely instructed for 
this purpose. The lamasanes are similar to monasteries in 
Catholic countries, and are endowed by government. A high 
lama is supported as minister at the court of China; and an 
order, called [Spiritual Princes of the Law and Masters of the 
Kingdom, are confidential advisers of the emperors. In the 
Chinese ilimpire alone, there are more than a million of 
lamas; and in Tartary, ail the male children, except the 
oldest sons, are brought up as lamas. In casting out devils, 
and redeeming souls from their purgatory, they find abun- 
aarit and lucrative employment. ft our hundred millions, 
mure than one-third of the whole human race, are believers 
kxi the religion of Buddha, and subject to the power of its 
priests. 

In Chaldaea and Persia, there was a powerful order of 
priests, who conducted the ceremonies of religion, explained 
the laws, practiced medicine, interpreted dreams, and averted 



THE PRIESTHOOD. 87 

evils by magical rites. For many centuries, all astrologers 
were known by the name of Chaldaeans. Mingled with their 
real knowledge of astronomy were the mysteries and impo- 
sitions of astrology. They professed power to command 
spirits, and by spells and charms compel them to reveal 
supernatural virtues existing in herbs and stones. These 
laws of magic were deemed so important, that the kings of 
Chaldaea and Persia were instructed therein as a valuable 
means of government. But the ceremonies and invocations 
by which armies were to be routed, and the enemy struck 
with sudden panic, must be performed by the priests. They, 
too, had a sacred language and secret doctrines and mys- 
teries, which they transmitted from father to son, hiding 
them carefully from the common people, who worshiped 
the sun, moon, and stars as real deities. Animals, and, prob- 
ably, human beings, were sacrificed to their gods ; and it is 
said that every woman in Babylon was obliged to offer her 
person for sale one day in the year at the temple of the 
Goddess Astarte, and give the money thus obtained to defray 
the priestly expenses of her worship. Persian priests were 
called magi. Each district had a superintending priest, who 
ranked next to the high priest ; and a third class officiated 
in towns and villages. A large tract of the most fertile land 
was appropriated to the magi ; and citizens were required 
to give a tenth of their income to their support. Kings 
could not enter upon their ofl&ce until they had been enrolled 
among the magi, and instructed in their mysteries. They 
had sole charge of the public records, and the education of 
youth ; they predicted future events, cast out evil spirits, and 
imparted supernatural virtue to stones, plants, and scraps of 
writing. 

Abraham, with whom the history of the Jews commences, 
was born in Chaldaea, and was undoubtedly a come-outer from 
the religion of his fathers. He became an infidel to the 
worship of the planets and images by which his countrymen 
represented the spirits of suns and stars. He was persecuted 
by the Chaldaean Government for affirming that there was but 
one God, the Creator of the universe ; and so left his coun- 
try, and came into the land of Canaan. Josephus says, that 
Abraham went into Egypt to become an auditor of their 



88 AN EYE-OPENER. 

priests, to know what they said concerning the gods ; design- 
ing to follow them if they had better notions than he, or to 
convert them into his own way. But it seems that his de- 
scendants continued to observe the patriarchal and simple 
forms of worship and sacrifice of their ancestors until about 
the time of Joseph's sale into Egypt. During the four hun- 
dred years in which the posterity of Jacob remained in 
Egypt, they must have become pretty thoroughly acquainted 
with Egyptian worship, and influenced by Egyptian ideas. 
Indeed, their sacred history as the especial people of God 
really begins to be interesting with the narrative of the 
Hebrew baby Moses, who became the adopted son of the 
Egyptian king. Knowledge was shut up from the common 
people, and monopolized by the priesthood, which included 
the royal family within itself. Moses must necessarily have 
been educated by priests, and, of course, familiar with the 
secret doctrines taught at the solemnization of their great 
mysteries. The laws of Moses are, in many respects, obvious 
copies of what he learned in Egypt. The ritual of worship 
prescribed by him bears a very strong resemblance to the 
Egyptian model, although he taught the one Grod of his an- 
cestor Abraham, instead of the many deities of the Egyp- 
tians. There is no reason to believe that his system of reli- 
gious rites and ceremonies was especially revealed to him, 
as they only vary from Egyptian models, in accordance with 
what the genius of an able leader like Moses would naturally 
devise. The name of his God, Jehovah, contains the present, 
past, and future tenses of the Hebrew verb to be ; and there- 
fore signifies I am, was, and will be. On a very ancient 
temple in Egypt has been found the inscription, " I am 
whatever is, was, and will be.'^ The breastplate of the Jew- 
ish high priests, set with precious stones, was an imitation 
of the Egyptian breastplate, set with jewels, worn by their 
judges or priests. The portable temple, which Moses called 
the tabernacle, was constructed on the same principles as 
Egyptian temples; and its holy of holies, containing the 
ark overshadowed by the wings of cherubims, was an imita- 
tion of Egyptian shrines overshadowed by creature's wings. 
The anointing of kings and priests with sacred oil ; harvest 
and new-moon festivals; the fumes of animal sacrifices; the 



THE PRIESTHOOD. 89 

waving of incense as a sweet savor before the Lord ; laying 
the sins of the nation upon the head of a bullock to be 
sacrificed for the nation ; the sacredness of animals, and the 
dung of animals, for purposes of purification,— were all Egyp- 
tian customs and beliefs, adopted by Moses. He shared with 
the Egyptians an abhorrence of swine, and adopted circum- 
cision from them. The serpent of brass, wreathed around a 
pole, and prescribed as a cure for those bitten by serpents, 
was adopted from the brass and silver images of serpents 
abounding in Egyptian temples, and mysteriously connected 
with their ideas of the healing art. From time immemorial, 
it had been the custom for traveling-parties in Hindostan 
to take with them a pole, with the image of a serpent 
wreathed around it. 

But Moses did not adopt the division of the people into 
castes from the Egyptians. The descendants of his ancestor 
Levi he ordained a line of hereditary priests ; and the family 
of his brother Aaron were made a perpetual order of high 
priests. A line of separation was established between the 
initiated few and the rude tribes they governed ; and Moses 
and Aaron, and all the succeeding series of high priests, were 
represented as possessing some means of direct communica- 
tion with Heaven, unknown, and carefully preserved from 
the common people. Under this pretext, the most abomi- 
nably cruel and unjust edicts were issued by the priests in 
the name of their god, who is represented to be possessed of 
all the worst passions of human nature. Anger, jealousy, 
and revenge are perpetually imputed to him. His threats of 
hot wrath, killing by the sword, utter extermination, de- 
struction of men, women, children, and cattle in his wrath, 
are terrible, but not more so than their execution. Every 
species of diabolical cruelty and injustice is comprised in the 
history of the dealing of the Jewish Jehovah, through his 
priests, with his chosen people and the nations round about 
them. For particulars read the Old Testament. 

Greece, gay, imaginative, and free, received religious ideas 
from every source, and wove them altogether in a mytholo- 
gical web of fancy full of golden threads. The gods were 
their familiar companions, and in them were deified all the 
passions of mortals. Temples consecrated to their services 



90 AN EYE-OPENER. 

adorned the hills and valleys ; and every town had some 
tutelary deity to preside over it. Priests abounded every- 
where, and were believed to be possessed of knowledge origi- 
nally revealed From above, which enabled them to perform 
the ceremonies and repeat the words necessary to bring down 
celestial spirits into statues, pillars, and consecrated stones j 
and that prayers addressed to these visible objects were heard 
by the deities to whom they were addressed. Those who 
gained money by these images and ceremonies naturally en- 
couraged an increase of them. The priesthood, in the midst 
of the freedom and levity of this peculiar people, never at- 
tained that exclusive power and privilege which they enjoyed 
in India or Egypt. The intellectual energy and freedom of 
inquiry that distinguished the Greeks was doubtless both 
the cause and the result of this distinction. Women were 
administered to the Grrecian priesthood, shared its highest 
dignities, and as such were regarded with great veneration. 
But the most debasing orgies and nocturnal assemblies for 
revelry and licentiousness were carried on under the disguise 
of religion. In the worship of Bacchus, and in the Temples 
of Venus and Jupiter, the most impure rites were presided 
over by the priests It was a common thing for the priest- 
hood to demand the most beautiful females to comply with 
their wishes, and, by simulating the appearance of a god in 
the temple, to accomplish their purposes. In Rome, a 
haughty but extremely beautiful female was addressed in the 
streets in these words : " Repress your pride : I was the 
god that met you last night in the Temple of Jupiter." 
Thousands of females were filled with vain hopes of incar- 
nating deities ; but the result proved that their children be- 
gotten in the temple were no gods. 

The history of Christianity offers no fairer picture of the 
influence of the priesthood upon the liberties and rights of 
man. If Christianity originated with the simple and sincere 
convictions of a sect of Jewish reformers, protestants against 
the corruptions of the priesthood of their day, it is certain 
that it very soon became the pretext of designing and ambi- 
tious men to gain spiritual power and ascendency over their 
fellows. The Gralilean fishermen and the tent-maker of 
Tarsus may have uttered their convictions in the spirit of 



THE PRIESTHOOD. 91 

sincerity, and amidst all the dangers of persecution ; but, when 
the division of the converts into clergy and laity began, the 
old spirit of priestcraft organized itself again against the 
rights and interests of man. The clergy constitute a priest- 
hood, under whatever name they may assume, with implied 
rights and privileges derived from the especial favor of Deity, 
as mediums between God and man. Catholic and Protestant 
are alike in this position, however they may differ in the 
details and extent of their claims. From the time of the 
establishment of the clergy, ecclesiastical authority became 
austere, and submission to it enthusiastic. The authority 
of the Church, as founded on the divine will, was pressed 
not merely with argument, but by the sword and by torture. 
The conversion of nations by conquest took the place of indi- 
vidual conversion from conviction. The adoption of Chris- 
tianity by Constantine in the third century introduced into 
the Roman Empire an established priesthood which it had 
never known before. Grradually, by successful warfare, Con- 
stantine attained the undivided mastery of the Homan world, 
and firmly established the Christian religion. But the out- 
ward benefits which he conferred upon it were balanced by 
the rapid degeneracy they induced. It became a matter of 
policy to profess Christianity ) and all classes, princes and 
beggars, flocked into the Church. Eusebius, at the close of 
the third century, laments the corruptions of primitive 
morality in strong terms of censure : — 

" For more than a thousand years, the Grecian or Roman- 
Catholic clergy were the sole depositaries of the so-called 
Word of God, and regulators of religious morals ; yet during 
that time the clergy were, for the most part, pre-eminent in 
vice, as compared with the rest of the community.^' 

The testimony of its own fathers and bishops condemn it. 
Chrysostom, near the close of the fourth century, defended 
monkery on the ground that Christians had become so corrupt. 
St. Augustine complained that they were superstitious, adoring 
sepulchers and pictures of saints, and eating and drinking to 
excess at funerals under the excuse that it was an act of re- 
ligion. Salvian, in the fifth century, said that Christians 
were worse than the barbarians in life and conversation. In 
the sixth century, Pope Gregory attributed all public calam- 



92 AN EYE-OPENER. 

ities to tlie ambition of the bishops, who concealed the teeth 
of wolves under the face of sheep. In the seventh century 
the Council of Toledo decreed that the illegitimate children 
of the clergy, from the bishop down to the sub-deacon, should 
be slaves in the church where their fathers served. 

Bishop Hopkins says, for a period of seven hundred years 
together, up to the close of the sixteenth century, the popes 
and priesthood were the objects of continual complaint on the 
part of the laity; that, by their own acknowledgment, holi- 
ness was the exception, and iniquity the rule, since the great 
body of the clergy were steeped in licentiousness, avarice, 
simony, cruelty, violence, falsehood, and blood; that the 
reliance of the Church was in the terrors of the Inquisition, 
in the rack, the dungeon, and the stake ; that war, treachery, 
and assassination were patronized in the service of religion ; 
that bishops, cardinals, and popes were ready to lead their 
troops to battle ; and that there were constant revolts and 
rebellions against the tyranny of the priestly power. 

But space will not permit the presentation of the awful 
picture which the acts of the Christian priesthood have 
painted upon the background of the centuries. They have 
consecrated every vice in the interests of so-called religion. 
They graduated sins by pecuniary amercement ; they com- 
missioned assassins, having pardoned them before the com- 
mission of murder ; they absolved the oaths of a whole em- 
jfire to its lawful sovereign and the laws, and left the dead of 
a whole kingdom unburied for six months by interdict. They 
excited the most protracted, cruel, bloody, exterminating 
wars. The Crusades sacrificed five millions, and lasted three 
hundred years. The Palatinate was deluged in blood ; and a 
forty-nine-years' war almost annihilated the cities, villages, 
and people of Europe. Scotland, England, and Ireland, for 
a thousand years, never increased in population in conse- 
quence of wars, mostly religious. 

When the Spaniards invaded South America, the heathen 
priests were offering from two hundred to a thousand human 
sacrifices at a time. The Christian Spaniards, in their turn, 
carried out the work of blood with a vengeance. Las Casas, 
Bishop of Chiapa, estimates, from materials collected by him 
during fifty years' residence in America, that twelve million 



THE PRIESTHOOD. 93 

of the unoffending aborigines were immolated to the Chris- 
tian religion throughout this Western Continent. 

Enough of these horrors. We have seen that the spirit 
and character of priestcraft is the same in all time. What 
are our priesthood, the Catholic and Protestant clergy of 
America, now doing? In this age of light and civilization, 
their methods must be different from the bloody human sac- 
rifices, the inquisitorial tortures, and the long imprisonments, 
of former ages ; but control of the mind and conscience of 
the people is what they seek. So far as they can, they make 
it impossible for men to utter their free sentiments on religion. 
They seek to pervert the free constitution of our land of 
liberty to the base purpose of indorsing and establishing 
sectarian religion as the dominant power in our country. 
They take our children into their Sunday schools, and instill 
the most damnable doctrines, against reason and nature, into 
their minds, biasing the judgment and warping the free 
spirits of those who are to succeed us upon the stage of 
action. They seek to compel the reading of their Bible in 
our public schools, that reverence for it as the Word of God 
may be inculcated before reason has learned to criticise it. 
In every way, the clergy, as a class, impose themselves upon 
the industry and free activity of the people as a depressing 
incubus, occupying attention that should be devoted to the 
study of science and practical deeds of helpfulness and kind- 
ness to mankind, with dreams and speculations concerning 
another world, full of the grossest absurdities and of the 
most injurious influence. 

American citizens, beware of the influence of this privi- 
leged class, — the priesthood or clergy. 



A DOCTOR OF DIVINITY CEITICISED. 



I HAVE been looking over a sermon preaclied by the very- 
reverend Dr. Power of New York, in St. Peter's Church. 
Text, " An Scripture divinely inspired is useful to teach." 

What does he mean by " divinely inspired " ? He says 
all the books of the Old and New Testaments, except the 
Apocrypha, are divinely inspired. Does he mean to say 
Matthew and Luke were inspired ? If they were, why do 
they not give the same account of Jesus ? Matthew says, 
when Jesus was born, some wise men from the East saw his 
star, and came to worship him Joseph was ordered into 
Egypt with the child. Herod murdered the children. Luke 
says, Joseph came to Bethlehem to b6 taxed. Jesus was 
born there. He was taken to Jerusalem, where he was wor- 
shiped by Simeon and Anna, whence they took him to 
their own city, Nazareth, and brought him to Jerusalem 
every year till he was twelve years old. If Grod, or the Holy 
Ghost, had inspired them, I should expect they would give 
the same account. The number of generations, according to 
MattheW; was twenty-seven. Luke gives forty-two, and not 
one the same father. 

What stupidity for people to listen to a priest telling them 
that the Scriptures wer^ inspired ! Does any person believe 
that an all-wise Being would create a man and woman, and 
put a devil in their company, and punish them and their 
children for eating fruit ? And then, does any one believe 
that God would come down from heaven to be murdered by 
his own people ? Or does any one believe the story of God 
making a companion of the Devil ? or believe that God 
94 



A DOCTOR OF DIVINITY CRITICISED. 95 

would have made Lucifer and his angels if he knew before- 
hand they would rebel against him ? or the story of Christ 
going on the top of a mountain with the Devil ? All these 
are inspired writings ; but I think, if Grod had any thing to 
do with inspiring them, he would have inspired them to write 
alike. But such writings as are contained in the Old and 
New Testaments, Grod could not have inspired. Mr. Power 
says, that St. Peter, in his Second Epistle, commends the 
Christians for their attachment to the prophecies. Mosheim 
says, a number of Christians, toward the tenth century, gave 
their property to the Church, and went to Jerusalem, expect- 
ing the world to be at an end. About the same time, we find 
Pope John XII. assassinated in the arms of his mistress ; 
Crecentious, the illegitimate son of John X., causing Bene- 
dict VI. to be murdered. His faction elected Boniface VII., 
and a third elected John XV., who was put to death by Boni- 
face. We find, shortly after 1044, Benedict IX., a boy twelve 
years old, elected, and find Rholeme and Sylvester III. all 
reigning at the same time, supported by their different fac- 
tions, and, what was most surprising, living peaceably with 
each other. One resided at St. Peter's, another at Santa 
Maria, and the third at the palace of the Lateran ; all lead- 
ing the most profligate and scandalous lives. A priest called 
G-ratian got himself elected now, making four popes at the 
same time. Let any person read the history of Europe, and 
see what kind of inspiration led that Church which says she 
could never err. He will see that power and wealth inspired 
all her actions. 

Mr. Power says he defies the most inveterate enemy of the 
Church to prove she ever denied the Bible to the people, 
and with the same breath acknowledges it is in the fourth 
rule of the index of writings of the Council of Trent. I 
can tell Mr. Power that he strives to deny the truth. The 
Council of Trent forbade the Bible to be translated in the 
vernacular tongues, and threatens vengeance on the book- 
seller who should dare to sell the Bible, even in Latin, to a 
man, without a license. But both priests and laymen will deny 
the truth if they can. They will not permit Young's " Night 
Thoughts" nor Milton's "Paradise Lost" to pass the cus- 
tom house in some of the Catholic isles of the Mediterranean. 



96 AN EYE-OPENER. 

But the Catholic Church acts according to circumstances. 
About the sixth century, Boniface, Bishop of Borne, took the 
title of Pope, or Universal Bishop. Rhaskas, the murderer, 
took his uncle Morris (the emperor) a prisoner, murdered 
him, his three sons, his wife, and two daughters, and set him- 
self on the throne. The bishop sanctioned his usurpation 
and murders, and he made the bishop pope. Then the pope 
wanted property, and a chance presented itself. Pepin, 
Constable of France, wanted to make himself king, and turn 
off his lawful sovereign. The pope made a bargain with 
him, and soon established him as King of France. Pepin, to 
reward the pope, marched a French army into Italy, took 
Ravenna from the King of the Lombards, and gave it to the 
pope. So you see how much justice there was in popes and 
kings in those days. My blood chills within me when I look 
at the dungeons crowded, and the persons inveigled into 
religious houses, and never seen again. 

Some of the most celebrated saints of the Church studied 
chemistry, as they found it the best means to raise devils. 
One of the most celebrated of these was St. Dunstan. Let any 
one read his life and actions in the history of England, — his 
contests with devils, his working of miracles to prevent the 
clergy from having wives ; for in the ninth century the 
clergy had wives, but, as the -<jhurch aimed then at universal 
power, she thought to deprive the clergy of families, and so 
fit them better to promote the power of the Church, The 
knowledge of chemistry was of great service to the saints ; 
for the mass of the people were ignorant. Pious frauds were 
the order of that day, — relics, pieces of the cross, bones, 
stones, waters, pilgrimages, sponges, witches, ghosts, fairies, 
&c. But the day of light is arriving. Education is driving 
away all the ghosts and sorceries ; and witches and devils are 
fast disappearing. 

They say, God knows all things that will occur before- 
hand. If Grod knew that the angels would rebel, why did 
he create them ? What curious ideas the Scriptures give of 
God ! He knew beforehand that Eve would eat the apple ; 
yet he curses the earth and every generation, — and all about 
an apple. And he must needs descend from heaven, and suf- 
fer death by his own people, on account of that apple I Why, 



A DOCTOR OF DIVINITY CRITICISED. 97 

if my little girl twelve years old was to eat an apple contra- 
ry to my orders (and I would not trust her much), I should 
be very sorry to curse her, or her children either. ; Yet we 
are taught to believe in God's foreknowledge. He makes 
angels, and turns them into devils. He makes man and 
woman, and right away he curses them. Any one that will 
look at the beautiful order of creation will see it is all false. 
See how a vessel can pass around the world, and the mariner, 
in the mountainous waves of the ocean, can tell his situation 
by the order of the heavenly bodies. The heavens, the earth, 
the sea, and all contained therein, are filled with wonder ; all 
are in order, formed wisely for their purpose, and proclaim 
that their Author could not be the author of the inconsisten- 
cies that are in the Bible. 

The Jews say in the Bible that they were God's chosen 
people. All the rest of the world were outlaws : therefore 
they had a right to murder and rob them. 

But does confining the mind, as the Catholic Church does, 
in her rules for eating, praying, reading, &c., make the peo- 
ple any better ? If any one can show me that the people are 
any better, I will submit ; but I believe it makes them worse. 
It prevents them from thinking or reflecting, or from looking 
properly at the moral principles of the world. The beauties 
of creation have no beauty for them. They can see no beauty 
but in their church. They can read no books but prayer- 
books or lives of saints. How presumptuous for any church 
or men to write down prayers for the people ! Cannot they 
praise God in his creation without a book, or beads, or the 
lives of saints working miracles ? Any one that will look at 
Nature or the creation will see that miracle-working is all false. 
The heavens, the earth, and nature, are governed by fixed 
laws : so that there never were miracles, nor devils jumping 
in or out of people, more than at present. What an incon- 
sistent doctrine, that a reasonable, just God (as they say he 
is) would allow devils to be carrying on in opposition to him 1 
Putting a devil in company with Adam and Eve, just created, 
and making a companion of him in the job, and Jesus Christ 
casting devils out of the men into the hogs, are all inconsis- 
tencies. Yet we find a great many stories about devils in 
the lives of Catholic saints. When the British House of 



98 AN EYE-OPENER. 

Commons granted fifty thousand pounds a year to educate 
the poor in Ireland, the clergy of every denomination opposed 
it: the Presbyterian ministers did their best against it. 
Bishop McHale, a Catholic, said he wanted no new-fangled 
way of education : he would send men amongst them that 
would teach them their prayers, and if they were not so well 
enlightened they could live as their fathers had lived. But 
the Irish revolted from their clergy, and accepted the sum 
from the government. 



THE CHRISTIAN AND THE HEATHEN. 



-«♦♦- 



But a small portion of the human family are believers in 
Christianity. The countries in which it is established com- 
prehend not one-fourth of earth's population. The inhabi- 
tants of our globe amount to about one thousand millions ; 
and nominal Christians number two hundred and fifty mil- 
lions. Three-fourths of mankind regard Christianity with 
indifi'erence and contempt. Foreign nations commiserate the 
moral darkness of Christians, wonder at their monstrous 
superstition and folly, and have in every respect the same 
opinions of Christians that Christians have of them. What- 
ever representations priests and missionary societies may 
think best serves their interests to make, the truth is, that 
some pagan nations are better educated and more generally 
informed than we are. In China, you will scarcely find an un- 
educated person. Among Hindoos, Mohammedans, and other 
nations are found the most finished scholars of the world. 
And who have given us the arts and sciences, and where 
have we obtained the elements of civilization ? From pagan 
countries. The unbelievers in Christianity are more moral 
than its believers. The honesty and sobriety of Mohamme- 
dans are proverbial. The Chinese comply strictly with the 
injunctions of their prophet . The first war between Eng- 
land and China shows the great difi"erence between Christian 
and heathen nations. The Chinese, finding the introduction 
of opium injurious to the morals and health of the people, 
prohibited its importation. The English, on the other hand, 
unwilling to forego the profit arising from its trade, deter- 
mined to force the poison down their throats, and to back 
99 



100 AN EYE-OPENER. 

their interests with ball and cannon. The Indians originally 
were a noble, generous, and humane race ; but, since their 
acquaintance with Christians, they have not only been cor- 
rupted but butchered. Red Jacket, the friend of his nation, 
says in his talented address to " Missionaries : " " You 
asked us for land : we -gave it. You asked us for bread : we 
also gave you bread. You, in return gave us poison, which 
has swept off thousands. Before you came among us, we 
had but few disputes; and they were generally settled without 
shedding blood. But, since you have come amongst us, 
Indian has been hired to fight against Indian, until there are 
few of us left." 

But all in Christendom are not Christians. This class of 
Christendom embody talents, philanthropy, learning, and 
patriotism, which knows no equal in the body of their oppo- 
nents. Gribbon, the greatest historian that ever lived ; Vol- 
taire, so celebrated for his shrewdness, his logic, and his 
common erudition; Hume, whose virtue and talents have 
never been excelled ; Paine, the advocate of human rights, 
the patriot, the philanthropist, a martyr to his faith, and a 
host of others, have written unanswerable works against 
Christianity, and died without changing their minds. The 
defenders of the gospel, with a* few exceptions, have been 
hired priests, who get their living by endeavoring to prove 
its truth. 

Of the two hundred and fifty millions who inhabit Chris- 
tendom, one-half are infants, or persons who are too far 
beneath the years of discretion to have a rational opinion. 
As those who do not believe the gospel are infidels, all under 
the years of discretion must be infidels. This fact reduces 
the number of Christians to one hundred and twenty-five mil- 
lions^ and increases the number of infidels to eight hundred 
and seventy-five millions. 

Of the one hundred and twenty-five millions of Christen- 
dom who are capable of forming an opinion on religion, not 
more than one-tenth are attached to the Church • and conse- 
quently the number of Christians must be reduced from 
125,000,000 to 25,000,000 : while the number of infidels 
must be increased to 975,000,000. 

One-half of the 25,000,000 have joined the Church for 



THE CHRISTIAN AND THE HEATHEN. 101 

sinister purposes. This is a usual calculation with priests. 
This estimate reduces the number of Christians to 12,500,- 
000, and swells the number of infidels to 987,500,000. 

Before a person can believe the Bible, he must know its 
contents. Those only who read the Bible, who have read it 
through and weighed its meaning, can claim to be believers 
in its matters. Setting this class down to one-half, which is 
exceedingly liberal, it would reduce the number of Christians 
to 6,250,000, and make the infidels number 993,750,000. 

No person can have a rational opinion on any subject un- 
less he reads both sides of the argument. He may have 
hopes, prepossessions, or conjectures, without investigation; 
but he can have no belief. The Christian who professes to 
believe without examining what has been written against the 
Bible may have bigotry, fanaticism, foolishness, stupidity, 
superstition, or any other vice of the same genus, but can 
have no rational belief. Now, how few Christians have read 
upon both sides of the question ? Have half of the priests, 
or one-quarter of the professors ? No, not one-tenth of either ! 
But, put. down the number to one-half; and then the number 
of Christians would be 3,125,000, and the number of infidels 
996,875,000. 

No person who doubts a proposition can believe it to be 
true ; for doubt implies disbelief. Now, what a large number 
of Christians profess to have doubts ! How many priests 
entertain doubts of the Bible ! Charity for human nature 
would forbid us to think that any person could believe it. To 
what an insignificant number does this fact reduce the body 
of Christians. 

A Christian is a follower of Christ ; but where do you find 
a follower of him ? Who follows his example ? What pro- 
fessor, like Christ, wanders from country to country, spends 
whole nights in prayer, submits to reproach and suffering 
for others, and chooses to have not where to lay his head'^ 
And who obeys his command ? Who is as perfect as God ? y 
Who gives his cloak to the thief who steals his coatrv 
Who will turn one cheek to the man who smites him on the 
other ? Will ministers, who persecute and imprison infidels ? 
Do priests, who live in splendid mansions, who are surrounded 
with the comforts and luxuries of life, who seek to be the 



102 AN EYE-OPENER. 

heads of society, and who have their incomes and libraries, — 
do they follow the example of Jesus ? By no means ! Who 
do then? Professors? Look at their conduct; and do they 
not hourly violate the principles of their profession ? Ani- 
mosity, persecution, backbiting, slandering, and every other 
vice, is discovered in their '.conduct. While they profess to 
believe that their eternal happiness depends upon their prac- 
tice of the precepts of Jesus, they live in the habitual viola- 
tion of them ; and, while they profess to believe that the 
greater portion of society are liable to be consigned to reme- 
diless torment, they are as calm and tranquil as if they 
disbelieved every word of their creed. Have they no human 
sympathy, or are they hypocrites ? for their indiflference 
proves that they are either one or the other. 

The most liberal calculation that can be made shows, that, 
out of 1,000,000,000 human beings, there are at least 996,- 
876,000 more infidels than Christians. This is extraordinary, 
especially when we consider that Christianity is divided into 
innumerable sects, adapting the system to every degree of 
taste, to every variety of prejudice, and to every system of 
philosophy ; and, when we further recollect the innumerable 
books written in its favor, the sermons preached, the churches 
built, the colleges erected, the massacres committed, the 
battles fought, the frauds perpetrated, the racks devised, and 
the persecutions carried on, all in its defense and for its 
propagation, the wildest absurdity ever dreamed of, aided 
by such powerful auxiliaries, would have made greater 
progress. 



EFFECTS or BELIEVING THE BIBLE, 



It is often said by priests (and no doubt some are silly 
enough to consider it a sound argument), that, if the Bible 
be a fraud, it is a good one. This declaration is proof into 
what gross absurdities the temptations of interest or prepos- 
session may betray human nature. No fraud is good. 
Goodness and deception are opposite to each other. It can 
neither be useful nor right to impose on mankind. Priests 
may as well proclaim virtue to be vice, or misery happiness, 
as that any fraud is good. Truth and happiness, misery and 
error, are necessarily connected. Man is happy in propor- 
tion to the amount of truth which he possesses, and miserable 
in proportion to his errors. Now, a system of fraud, how- 
ever holy it, may be considered, by whomsoever it is sup- 
ported, by whatever time or ceremonies it is consecrated, 
must be highly injurious to society, and unproductive of hap- 
piness. 

The Bible has been an injury to society, and not a benefit 
to mankind. Its grand doctrines are founded on principles 
adverse to the human constitution. It is professedly an im- 
provement on the work of God, and implies that God has 
not made man with right principles and affections, and that 
it is able to make him the being that God should have cre- 
ated him. It therefore proposes to renovate his original con- 
stitution ; to uproot the principles implanted in his nature by 
his God; to give him a different heart, a different mind, 
different affections, powers, and appetites. Now, in attempt- 
ing to do this, which never can be done, a man makes him- 
self miserable. In endeavoring to destroy the nature which 

103 



1/ 



104 AN EYE-OPENER. 

Grod has given the Christian, he experiences all his conflicts 
with flesh and blood, all the agony of repentance, and all 
the difficulty of believing. Reason and nature rebel against 
this diabolical work. The Christian piously terms the 
remonstrances of reason the temptation of the devil, and 
the resistance of nature the narrowness of the path to glory. 
Unable to accomplish the renovation of his nature, and be- 
lieving eternal perdition the condition of a failure, a man 
becomes a miserable being, fretting out his days in gloomy 
melancholy, and sometimes ending his existence in a maniac's 
cell. 

The horrid and fearful sentiments inculcated in the Bible 
are another source of misery. God is represented to be 
clothed in wrath, burning with vengeance, rigorously de- 
manding a compliance with the terms of faith, murdering his 
Son before he would excuse a sinner, and consigning a count- 
less number of devils and human beings to eternal flames. 
All who will not obey laws which they cannot are objects of 
his unmitigated wrath. The dearest objects of our aff"ections ; 
the most amiable and lovely of the human family; our friends, 
relations, and ourselves, are liable, at each moment we breathe, 
to become the helpless victims of almighty wrath. Believ- 
ing such doctrines, none but a demon could be happy. Men 
must become callous to human sufferings before they can 
enjoy sleep or comfort under the impression of s>uch distress- 
ing sentiments. It was in natural accordance with human 
feelings that rivers of tears ran down David's cheek because 
men kept not Grod's laws ; that Jeremiah wished his head a 
fountain of water, and his eyes rivers of tears, that he might 
weep day and night ; that St. Paul felt continual heaviness 
and great sorrow of heart, and went about with tears in his 
eyes. G-reat sorrow and melancholy are the infallible results 
of believing the Bible ; while cheerfulness or gayety proves a 
professor a hypocrite. 

The terror which the horrid doctrines of the Bible throw 
around death-beds is another proof of the misery which they 
produce. The death-bed scenes of Christians are truly ap- 
palling. Fearful that they are not converted, an awful eter- 
nity of unending torment appears to be opening at their feet. 



EFFECTS OF BELIEVING THE BIBLE. 105 

Enthusiastic ravings, horrid forebodings, or calm despair 
generally mark their latter end. 

The Bible has been a prolific cause of animosity. Reli- 
gious hatred is the most cruel and deadly species of that vice. 
Differences in legal claims or political controversy may be 
healed by time, or mellowed by adversity ; but pious cruelty 
can never be subdued. It converts a man into a monster, 
which no philosophy can soften, no charity reclaim, no argu- 
ment convert ; who, dead to the feelings of humanity, and 
burning with a revengeful appetite, erects his altar upon 
the ruins of his enemy, and would gladly feed upon a broth- 
er's blood. 

The Bible has been, of all other systems, the greatest in- 
centive of cruelty. The spirit of persecution sprung from its 
nature, and has been coeval with its existence. The Jews, 
with a blood-thirsty spirit, monstrous and unparalleled, but 
originating from their intolerant principles, massacred all 
who could not believe their faith. Kingdom after kingdom 
crumbled before their march; cities were plundered, and 
their inhabitants murdered ; the captives which they took 
were subjected to excruciating torments ; women with chil- 
dren were ripped up ; maids were debauched by the mur- 
derers of their brothers and sisters. Every evening set upon 
a new desolation ; and every morning dawned upon some new 
inhumanity. In short, their whole course from Egypt to the 
Holy Land was drenched with the blood of unoffending 
and defenseless nations. Christians, imbibing the same 
principles, have adopted the same conduct. When they were 
powerless, they were comparatively harmless; but, the moment 
they acquired power, they were vindictive and revengeful. 
Unbelievers were tortured upon racks, chained in dungeons, 
and burnt to death. Nations were warred against; cities 
were entered ; their inhabitants, whether men, women, or 
children, were put to death ; and their houses plundered and 
burnt. Every crime was committed. Murder, assassina- 
tion, rape, and stealing were committed by the Church. 
The history of religion has been a history of blood and inhu- 
manity. 

The same bitter and unrelenting hatred which desolated 
other countries is now at work. Pagan countries are de- 



106 AN EYE-OPENER. 

nounced as barbarous. The infidel who honestly avows his 
sincere convictions is proscribed ; and every means, how- 
ever infamous, adopted to blast his character and happiness. 
Thomas Paine, to whom we owe our liberty, who expended 
bis money in our behalf, and jeopardized his life for our 
welfare, is calumniated by every priest. Thomas Jefferson, 
the statesman, philosopher, and patriot, the noble author of 
the Declaration of Independence, has been aspersed, slan- 
dered, and defamed. All who will not support a bigoted 
and stupid set of priests are doomed to share the same fate. 
Had they the power, the blood of infidels would deluge the 
world. 

Hypocrisy is almost the invariable result of professing to 
believe the Bible. Hypocrisy is professing what a person 
does not believe. Now, a man who professes to obey the 
Bible professes to be as perfect as God ; and all who claim 
this perfection are impious hypocrites. The Bible injunc- 
tion is, " Be ye perfect as my Father which is in heaven is 
perfect" (Matt. v. 48). The man who is not perfect is no 
Christian ; the man who pretends to be is a hypocrite. 

Religion suppresses inquiry. It is founded upon implicit 
faith. We must believe, or be damned. We must sacrifice 
our reason, reject common sense, suppress inquiry, and sub- 
mit to what the Bible enjoins, or be damned. Reason con- 
demns the Bible ; and therefore the Bible condemns reason. 
Priests know that inquiry would destroy their influence over 
any mind ; and therefore they suppress it. 

The Bible has i uined many a mind. A sincere man, who 
determines to become a Christian, becomes a madman. He 
can never become what the Bible requires ; and, the conse- 
quence being eternal torment, it will distract his mind. Re- 
ligion has driven millions upon millions to the hospital. 
The talented, virtuous, amiable men and women, fitted to 
•adorn the highest stations in society, have, under the influ- 
ence of religion, been doomed to a maniac's cell. 

Religion is inimical to liberty. Religion proscribes what 
liberty tolerates. Freedom of opinion, liberty of speech, and 
the exercise of reason, is denouncedby religion, but protected 
and encouraged by liberty. The one is directly opposed to 
the other ; and, in proportion as one is supported, the other 



EFFECTS OF BELIEVING THE BIBLE. 107 

is subverted. Before religious frauds were fabricated and 
imposed upon society, the world was a world of republics ; 
but, since that period, obnoxious distinctions in society have 
been created ; thrones have been established, and despotic 
governments founded, all under the fostering care of reli- 
gion. The Christian religion has created the most arbitrary 
and tyrannical government of all others. The Pope of Rome 
arrogated a supremacy above all kings and people, and pro- 
fessed to have the power of opening the gates of heaven to 
whom he pleased. The hardest struggles of the American 
lie volution were against the dominant power of religion. 
Paine and Jefferson were the bold patriots who disputed its 
power; and to them chiefly we owe the freedom we enjoy. 
The controversies to which religion has given rise in our 
country had already shaken the pillars of government. A dis- 
solution of the Union has ever been argued in our Capitol. 

Woman is another monument of religious tyranny. Re- 
garded as the mother of evil, she is doomed to subjection to 
man, denied an equal station in society with him, and deprived 
of the power to protect her rights. 

Such has been the injurious tendency of religion ; and who 
can say, that, if a fraud, it is a good one ? We need no book 
to teach what is right or wrong. Every man knows what is 
beneficial, and what is injurious; the great distinction be- 
tween virtue and vice. This knowledge is engraven on his 
heart. It can not be altered, mistranslated, misinterpreted, or 
lost. It is a Bible which every one possesses and which no 
one can part with. It is all-sufficient, and allows no ground 
for the fabrication of fraud. 

On reading the Christian's Manual, pages 17 and 18, 1 find 
it contains a very singular transaction. The history of 
Judah, recorded in the 38th chapter of Genesis, is worthy 
of a logical examination. Judah being the fourth genera- 
tion from Terah, preceded Moses three generations; and, as 
the seven generations, i. e., from the birth of Terah to the 
birth of Moses, covers a space of 555 years, this would aver- 
age 79 years, or a fraction, to each generation ; which would 
contradict reason and common sense, and would be much at 
variance with the history of Judah, who took a wife, and in 
less than ten years was a grandfather. If Shelah, his third 



108 AN EYE-OPENER. 

son, had performed the part of a brother of the deceased 
husband of Tamar, then, in that case, Judah would have been 
a great-grandfather ; for the Bible says, Tamar bore two sons 
unto Judah (her father-in-law), after Shelah, his third son, 
was grown to manhood ; and one of these sons had two sons, 
— all this being enacted in less than ten years. If the 35th 
chapter and 28th verse, and 37th and 38th chapters of Gren- 
esis are recorded in the order of time in which they took 
place, then Judah would have been a great-grandfather 
in less than ten years from the time he (Judah) took him a 
wife. 

Now, I ask, is it not astonishing that we can be so credu- 
lous as to believe this tale because it is recorded in the Bible ; 
i. e., that a man could take a women to wife, and of her 
beget sons, and, when they were grown to manhood, and the 
eldest of these married a wife, and died without leaving any 
issue, that the second took her to perform the part of a 
deceased husband's brother, and died without leaving any 
se«d (see the scriptural account), for which the Lord slew 
him. And afterward, when Shelah, Judah's third son, was 
grown to manhood, Judah at that time did beget two sons by 
Tamar (his daughter-in-law) ; and one of these sons begat two 
sons : and all was performed in less than ten years. This can 
be shown by Isaac and Jacob's ages, as Isaac was 60 years 
old when Jacob was born, and Isaac was 180 years old when 
he died, which would make Jacob 120 years old at that 
time, if the 25th chapter and 26th verse, and 35th chapter 
and 28th verse of Genesis are true, and 35th and 38th chap- 
ters of Genesis are recorded in the order of time in which 
they took place. Then Isaac was dead before Judah took 
him a wife ; and, ten years after the death of Isaac, Jacob 
and his posterity went to Egypt, in the time of the famine, if 
the 47th chapter 9th verse is true. 

Now, I think it is evident to every unprejudiced mind, that 
the cause of our believing such unreasonable tales arises from 
the manner in which Christian communities educate their 
children, teaching them these fables before they are capable 
of logically examining for themselves. When the tender 
mind is trained to believe such fables, and continues in it to 
maturity, it is very difficult, and sometimes impossible, to ex- 



EFFECTS OP BELIEVING THE BIBLE. 109 

tirpate its prejudices, as they hold those tales above reason, 
and cannot be prevailed upon to examine them. We must 
believe them, because they are recorded in the Bible ; and we 
must believe the Bible, because the priests tell us it originat- 
ed with God, and is infallibly correct and perfect. 

Would it not be acting more rational for every person can- 
didly to examine the Scriptures themselves, rather than to 
subscribe to them with hand and heart as true, for no other 
reason than because they are called the Bible ? 



SOLOMON'S SONGS. 



Among several beautiful pastoral fragments in the collec- 
tion bearing this title, and which may very properly be 
called (using a figure of the Eastern poets) pearls at random 
strung^ there are some which appear to have been the songs 
of the seraglio, and are suited to no other place. This will 
appear evident from the sixth and seventh chapters The 
latter, though containing many beauties and much luxuriance 
of description (being a rhapsody of admiration), would be 
quite unsuited for this book. The heroine appears to have 
been quite naked, with the exception of her shoes, or san- 
dals. 

It is evidently a collection of love-songs. It can not be 
considered as one song ; for the scene, the speakers, and the 
character of it (or rather them), are entirely changed. It is 
not difficult to separate the parts into difi"erent songs ; though 
the translators have jumbled them together into chapter and 
verse in a most incongruous manner, and have placed such 
absurd running titles as these to them : " The Church's love 
unto Christ/' " Christ setteth forth the graces of the 
Church,'' &c. They are love-songs, similar to those of our 
own time, with this, among other peculiarities, that the lady 
speaks with much more freedom and less modesty than with 
us. 

If we are to believe the title placed over the chapter, it is 
a " Description of the Church's Graces." Fancy for a mo- 
ment that Christ, enamored of the Church's beauty, exclaims 
with delight that her " belly is like a heap of wheat, and the 
smell of her nose like apples ! " But such absurdities as this 

110 



Solomon's songs. Ill 

are part and parcel of our religious faith ; indeed, nothing 
but faith can enable us to believe such absurdity. This ap- 
plication of these loose songs is so perfectly ridiculous, that 
one is almost induced to think that the reverend scholar who 
prepared them for publication was something of a wag, who 
calculated safely on the stupidity of his devout readers The 
same titles would apply as well to Tom Little's songs, or the 
poems of my Lord of Rochester, as to these, and with as much 
truth. 

In the following short dialogue, we may imagine a concu- 
bine, probably a stately woman, to recommend her young 
sister to the notice of the prince. The meaning of the words 
translated "wall" and " door" were probably idiomatic, and 
are lost: — 

She — " We have a little sister, and she hath no breasts; 
what shall we do for our sister in the day when she shall be 
spoken for ? " 

He — " If she be a wall, we will build upon her a palace of 
silver ; and, if she be a door, we will enclose her with boards 
of cedar." 

She — " I am a wall ; and my breasts are like towers : then 
was I in his eyes as one that found favor." 

The following little pastoral would be appropriate to a 
bashful country girl in love : — 

" Oh that thou wert as my brother, that sucked the breasts 
of my mother ; when I should find thee without, I would 
kiss thee : yea, I would not be despised. I would lead thee, 
and bring thee into my mother's house, who would instruct 
me. I would cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice 
of my pomegranate. His left hand should be under my head, 
and his right hand should embrace me." 

Besides the fragments already alluded to, there are two 
principal poems, more complete and finished than the rest, 
bearing marks of having been more carefully transcribed by 
the compilers. The first begins with the fourth chapter, and 
ends with the first verse of the fifth chapter ; the other be- 
gins with the second verse of the fifth chapter, and ends with 
that chapter. The latter one, which is the most admirable, 
is as follows : — 



112 AN EYE-OPENER. 

She — " I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of 
my beloved that knocketh." 

He — " Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my unde- 
filed ; for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the 
drops of the night/' 

She — " I have put ofi" my coat; how shall I put it on? 
I have washed my feet ; how shall I defile them ? " 

" My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door; 
and my compassion was moved for him. I rose up to open 
to my beloved, and my hands dropped with myrrh, and my 
fingers with sweet-smelling myrrh, upon the handles of the 
lock. 

" I opened to my beloved ; but my love had withdrawn him- 
self, and was gone. My heart failed when he spake. I 
sought him ; but I could not find him. I called him; but he 
gave me no answer. The watchman that went about the 
city found me ; they smote me ; they wounded me. The 
keepers of the walls took away my vail from me. 

" I charge you, daughters of Jerusalem ! if ye find my 
beloved, that ye tell him that I am sick of love." 

They — ■" What is thy beloved more than another beloved, 
thou fairest among women ! What is thy beloved more 
than another beloved, that thou dost so charge us ? '' 

She — " My beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest 
among ten thousand. His head is as the most fine gold, his 
locks are bushy, and black as a raven. His eyes are as the 
eyes of doves by the rivers of waters, washed with milk, and 
fitly set. His cheeks are as a bed of spices, as sweet flowers ; 
his lips like lilies, dropping sweet-smelling myrrh ; his 
hands have gold rings, set with the beryl ; his belly is like 
bright ivory, overlaid with sapphires ; his legs are as pillars 
of marble, set upon sockets of fine gold ; his countenance 
is as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars ; his mouth is most 
sweet : yea, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and 
this my friend, daughters of Jerusalem ! " 

" Behold, he standeth behind our wall, he looketh in at the 
windows, showing himself at the lattice. 

" My beloved spake, and said unto me : Rise up, my love, 
my fair one, and come away. For lo, the winter is passed, 
the rain is over and gone ; the flowers appear on the earth ; 



Solomon's songs. 113 

the time of tlie singing of birds is come, and the voice of the 
turtle is heard in our land; the fig-tree putteth forth her 
green figs ; and the vines with the tender grapes give a good 
smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away ! ^' 

The following song is in the style of a dialogue ; and the 
scene is evidently in-doors, as the action begins with dalli- 
ance, and ends with sleep : — 

He — " Behold, thou art fair, my love ! behold, thou art 
fair ; thou hast doves' eyes. Behold thou art fair, my be- 
loved, yea, pleasant : also our bed is green. The beams of 
our house are cedar, and our rafters of fir." 

She — "I am the rose of Sharon and the lily of the 
valleys." 

He — " As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the 
daughters." 

She — "As the apple-tree among the trees of the wood, 
so is my belove.d among the suns. I sat down under his 
shadow with great delight ; and his fruit was sweet to my 
taste." 

" He brought me to the banqueting-house ', and his banner 
over me was love ! Stay me with flagons, comfort me with 
apples -J for I am sick of love ! His left hand is under 
my head ; and his right hand doth embrace me. I charge 
you, ye daughters of Jerusalem ! by the roes and by the 
hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awaken my love 
till he please." 

These fragments are interesting, as showing the thoughts 
and feelings of a portion of the human family in far-off times 
and a far-off country. 



PAET SECOND. 



He that will not reason is a bigot; he that can not is a fool; he who dares 
not is a slave." 



DOUBTS OF INFIDELS. 



To MY Clerical Friends. 

1. Rev. Sirs, — Suppose a book to be published containing 
assertions of historical facts long past, which had no collat- 
eral testimony of other authors; suppose those facts in 
general to be improbable and incredible ; suppose the book 
to be anonymous, or, which is worse, ushered into the world 
under the name of a person, who, from the internal evidence 
of the thing, could not have written it, can it be imagined 
that such a book would find credit among people who have 
the least pretensions to reason or common sense ? Which, 
then, is the readiest way of confuting the enemies of our 
holy and only true religion, who do not scruple to affirm, that 
many books of canonical scripture are in this predicament ? 
They observe that the books of the Pentateuch bear many 
strong marks of an author long posterior to Moses ; that the 
Book of Numbers * quotes the Book of the Wars of the Lord, 
which, as first written, was most probably the book which 
Moses wrote ; that Moses could not possibly have written 
the account of his own death and burial in Deuteronomy, 
which, nevertheless, has no mark to distinguish it from the 
rest of the book. And supposing these and other objections 
of the like nature to be removed, what must we say in reply 
to their remark, that the Scripture, which we believe to be 

* Gen. vi. 6, 7; also Ex. vii. 3; xi. 9, 10. 1 Sam, 
lU 



DOUBTS OF INFIDELS. 115 

dictated by the inspiration of the unerring God, is frequently 
contradictory with regard to facts, and very often represents 
the all- wise Creator as angry, repenting, unjust, arbitrary, &c. 
and that consequently we must either give up that reliance 
which we naturally place on his goodness and rectitude, or 
reject those writings which represent him as a demon ? Do 
not you, reverend sirs, apprehend that, for want of better 
arguments, we shall be under the necessity of recurring to 
the argumentum pillorii^ or of adopting some of those gentle 
methods which were lawfully used for the conversion of 
heretics, in the mild and pious reign of Mary, Queen of 
England ? 

2. Is the account of the creation and fall of man in the 
Book of Genesis literal or allegorical ? Did God create light 
before the sun ? How could he divide the light from the 
darkness, since darkness is nothing but the mere privation 
of light ? How could time be divided into days before the 
creation of the sun, since a day is the time between sunrise 
and sunrise ? How could the firmament be created, since 
there is no firmament, and the false notice of its existence is 
no more than an imagination of the ancient Grecians ? 

3. The Scriptures were certainly written for the purpose 
of being understood, or for no purpose at all. A mystery, 
that is to say an assertion or theorem which the human un- 
derstanding is incapable of comprehending, must likewise be 
inexpressible in human speech : we can not, therefore, avail 
ourselves of the short and elegant method of clearing and 
elucidating difficult parts of Scripture by the use of the^ word 
mystery ; but how shall we, without this happy resource^ ex- 
plain the business of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, 
of a speaking serpent and of a tree of life, which God was 
obliged to guard by a cherubim and a flaming sword, lest 
man should eat the fruit, and become immortal ? 

4. The serpent was afflicted with the curse of going upon 
his belly. The scofiers seem to think it no curse at all ; for, 
as they take it for granted that he went upon his back before 
this unfortunate transaction, they apprehend it was doing 
him a singular piece of service to reverse him, the latter 
position being evidently the most convenient. They also 
take notice that no animal can subsist upon dust; and; that 



116 AN EYE-OPENER. 

whatever tlie individual serpent in question might have done, 
the serpents of modern times are so profane that they univer- 
sally reject so dry a food, and, by a second act of impiety, 
emancipate themselves from the consequences of the first. 

5. The account of the flood is very embarrassing. It is 
described as the effect of natural agents in the hands of Grod. 
It rained : no mention is made of waters created for the 
purpose. The deluge was universal ; all the high hills that 
were under the whole heaven were covered : and it ceased 
not by the annihilation of the waters, but they were evapo- 
rated by a wind. Now, from whence came the water ? The 
weight of the whole atmosphere, with all its vapors, is equal 
to no more than a hollow sphere of three or four and thirty 
feet thickness, environing the whole globe; and consequently 
the whole of its contents, if condensed into water, could not 
deluge the earth to the height of an ordinary house. It is to 
no purpose to break open the fountains of the abyss or great 
deep, if any such fountains there are ; for gravity would pre- 
vent the waters from issuing out : neither can we easily 
persuade infidels that the windows of heaven were opened, 
while they know it has no windows ; so that we have but 
three or four and thirty feet of water to deluge the highest 
mountains, some of which are more than fifteen thousand feet 
high.* 

6. The weak in faith are themselves equally at a loss re- 
specting the ark. It seems strange to them that so vast an 
assemblage of animals could be inclosed in an ark or chest 
which had but one window (which window was kept shut 
for more than five months), without being stifled for want of 
air. It appears equally remarkable, that Noah and his three 
sons could unstow and serve out the daily allowance of pro- 
visions and water to the passengers; and, if their wives were 
supposed to help them, the work to be done is still prodigi- 
ous. The lions and other carnivorous animals must have lived 
on salt provisions ; which no doubt they were glad oT", as 
sea-faring people are not very nice, especially in long voy- 
ages. 

7. If God set his bow in the clouds as a token of his cov- 

* The Indian Alps are 26,862 feet above the level of the ocean.— Ed. See 
Kirkpatrick's History of Neapolitan and Asiatic Researches, vol. viii. 



DOUBTS OF INFIDELS. 117 

enant with mankind after the flood, ought we not to conclude, 
that he at that time established the law of the refrangibility 
and reflexibility of the rays of light, and consequently that 
before the flood many optical experiments which are common 
with us would not then have succeeded ? For example, a 
man could not have made a rainbow by spouting water out 
of his mouth. Mr. Dolland's achromatic telescopes would 
then have been no better than common ones ; natural bodies 
must have appeared all of one color, &c. 

8. What answer must we give to those who are inclined to 
deny that an all-powerful God could make use of the most 
unjustifiable means to attain his great purpose of aggrandiz- 
ing the posterity of Abraham ? Could this benevolent and 
just Being approve of the ungenerous advantages which 
Jacob took over his faint and hungry brother ? Could this 
omnipotent and upright Spirit adopt no method of distin- 
guishing his favorite Jacob but that of fraud and lies, by 
which he deprived the same unsuspecting brother of his 
father's blessing ? Or, in short, how shall we justify Grod 
for the continual distinction and favor he is said to have be- 
stowed on a people who, from their own annals, appear to 
have been unparalleled for cruelty, ingratitude, inurbanity 
&c.* 

9. When unbelievers affirm that a just God could not 
punish Pharaoh for a hardness of heart of which hef himself 
[God] was evidently the cause, we usually answer that the 
potter has power over the clay to fashion it as he lists ; but 
when, in reply, they take notice that if the clay in the hands 
of the potter were capable of happiness or misery, according 
to the fashion impressed on it, the potter must be malevolent 
and cruel who can give the preference to inflicting pain 
instead of happiness, then we are obliged to be silent, in 
hopes that you, reverend sirs, will condescend to supply us 
with better arguments than any we are acquainted with at 
present. 

10. Miracles must have been very common in Egypt, since 
there was a body of people whose trade it was to work them. 

* See the acts of Joshua; also 1 Sam. xv. &c. 
t Exodus vii. 3, 4, and ix. 9, 10. 



118 AN EYE-OPENER. 

When Aaron's rod was turned into a serpent,* Pharaoh, in- 
stead of being surprised at it as an unusual phenomenon, 
sends for his magicians, who immediately performed the like 
with their rods. You owe us some little explanation con- 
cerning this business. We know it is our duty to believe 
that Aaron's was performed by the power of God, but are at 
a loss to discover by what power the magicians performed 
theirs. 

11. When Aaronf turned the waters of Egypt into blood, 
their streams, their rivers, their ponds, and all their pools, 
together with the water throughout the land of Egypt, 
whether in vessels of wood or vessels of stone, the magicians 
of Egypt did so likewise with their enchantments. There 
again our adversaries, who unfortunately have more curiosity 
than faith, take the liberty to inquire whether the magicians 
formed water to practice their art upon, since Aaron had 
already turned it into blood. 

12. Pharaoh, still continuing inflexible, though succes- 
sively exposed to the plagues of frogs, lice, and flies, J his 
cattle, namely, the horses, the asses, the camels, the oxen, 
and the sheep, were afflicted with a grievous murrain ; and 
ALL the cattle of Egypt died except those of the children 
of Israel. § This producing no good eff"ect with Pharaoh, the 
whole nation of Egyptians were plagued with boils and 
blains ; || notwithstanding which, Pharaoh's heart continued 
as hard as ever.^ Moses was therefore sent early in the 
morning to advise Pharaoh to send for his cattle, and all that 
he had in the field, and shelter them against a terrible hail- 
storm, the approach of which he predicted. They among 
Pharaoh's servants who feared the Lord saved their cattle 
and servants, by removing them into houses; for the next day 
came on a storm of thunder, lightning, and hail, which broke 
the trees, destroyed the herbage, and killed every creature 
that was in the field ; excepting only in the land of Goshen, 
where the children of Israel were, there was no hail. Divine 
truths are so difi'erent from those which carnal minds are 
used to contemplate, that it must be very difficult, by the 

* Exod. vii. 19. t Exod. vii. 19, &c. % Exod. viii. 

§ Exod. ix. 3, 6. 1| Exod. ix. f Exod. ix. 13, &c. 



DOUBTS OF INFIDELS. 119 

force of mere human reason, to persuade mankind in general 
that Pharaoh's cattle were in any great danger from the hail- 
storm, since they were all previously dead by the murrain ; 
and some people are so stupid that they think killing them 
a second time was no punishment at all. There are not 
wanting some among this perverse generation who are at a 
loss to conceive how those of Pharaoh's servants who feared 
the Lord could make their cattle flee into houses; since 
they pretended to maintain, that cattle already dead, whether 
by the murrain or otherwise, are incapable of fleeing. Not- 
withstanding those people are so obviously wrong, yet we de- 
pend upon you, reverend sirs, that you will expose their errors 
in more glaring colors than any in which they have yet ap- 
peared. 

13. Some weak believers are in doubt whether so mean, so 
ungenerous, and so dishonest an act as borrowing the jewels 
of the Egyptians,* without any intention of returning them, 
did not rather originate in that disposition which character- 
izes the Jews to this day, than in the command of the just 
Grod, who certainly could need no such tricks to accomplish 
his intentions. 

14. The plague of hail being succeeded by locusts, thick 
darkness, and the death of all the first-born of Egypt, cattle 
included, Pharaoh at length permitted the Israelites to de- 
part; but, afterwards repenting, he went in pursuit of themf 
with six hundred chariots, and all the horses and chariots of 
Pharaoh, and his horsemen and his army, and overtook them 
by the sea, near Baal Zephon. The Red Sea was parted in 
two, to aff'ord a passage for the Israelites. The Egyptians 
followed them, and were punished for their rashness by the 
return of the waters, which swallowed them up. Here, again, 
our petulant and unsatisfied opposers demand, how Pharaoh 
could pursue with chariots and horsemen, since his horses 
were all slain twice over, once by the murrain, and once by 
the hail, not to mention that the first-born of the cattle were 
slain even a third time. They likewise add that Egypt, 
which, to facilitate the dispersion of the waters of the over- 
flowing Nile, is intersected by numberless canals, must have 

* Ex. xi. 2. t Ex. xiv. 



120 AN EYE-OPENER. 

always been a very improper country, either for cavalry or 
chariots. 

15. Grod came to Balaam at night, and said unto him, " If 
the men come to call thee, rise up, and go with them/'* Ba- 
laam accordingly rose up, saddled his ass, and went with the 
princes of Moab. " But Grod's anger was kindled because 
he went," insomuch that he sent an angel to oppose him; 
who would certainly have slain him if the ass he rode on had 
not exhibited a specimen of penetration and prudence of 
which the asses of modern times seem to be divested. 
The infidels here insist, that it is better to reject the whole 
story than to believe that the Supreme Being could be angry 
with Balaam merely because he obeyed his command ; but 
the true believers, the sons of the Church, who think there 
would be no exercise for our faith if we were required to 
admit nothing but what can be supported by argument, are 
not at all concerned in this difficulty : the more improbable 
the doctrine, the greater must be the merit in believing. 

16. The Lord was with Judah ; and he drove out the 
inhabitants of the mountains, but could not drive out the 
inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron. 
It is difficult to conceive how the Lord of heaven and earth, 
who had so often changed the order and suspended the es- 
tablished laws of nature in favor of his people, the Jews, 
could not succeed against the inhabitants of a valley because 
they had chariots of iron. Or ought we not rather to infer, 
that the book in which this passage is found has nothing of 
divine inspiration in it, but was written by one of the Jews, 
who considered the Grod of Israel, their protector, as a local 
divinity, who was in some instances more, and in others less, 
powerful than the gods of their enemies. Thus David, in 
many places, comparer the Lord with other gods. '*The 
Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods," &c. 
And Jephthah says to the king of the children of Ammon, 
" Wilt thou not possess that which Chemosh, thy god, giveth 
thee to possess ? f So, whomsoever the Lord our God shall 
drive out before us, them shall we possess.'' 

17. How unjustly are the Spaniards stigmatized for the 
zeal they exhibited in converting the natives of Peru and 

* Num. xii. 20. f Judges xi. 24. 



DOUBTS OF INFIDELS. 121 

Mexico to the Cliristiaii religion ! * It is true they ripped up 
women with child, dashed infants to pieces against the rocks, 
and broiled men to death with slow fires ; but, as their pious 
intention was purely that of delivering these uninstructed 
and ignorant people from the more horrid pains of futurity, 
the truly compassionate can not but approve their conduct. 
How can we enough admire the mild and humane tran action 
of hanging up thirteen Indians in honor of Christ and the 
twelve apostles ? While the rest of the world admire the 
G-reeks and the Romans, they wisely assumed the heroes of 
sacred story as models for their imitation. Poor Las Casas ! 
His weak and effeminate heart bled at the scene of misery. He 
wanted zeal to join in the pious work, and even wished to 
leave the Indians in possession of certain imaginary blessings, 
which he pretended to call " the rights of humanity." But 
the holy ardor of his associates frustrated his impious at- 
tempts. He could do no more than write; yet his writings, 
so far from producing the effect he intended, only served to 
increase our admiration of those great characters he meant to 
stigmatize. If the comparison might be allowed, we may 
affirm that the Spaniards were inferior to the Jews in only 
this circumstance, that they had a Las Casas among them. 
The Jews were obdurate to a man, and hardened with holy 
cruelty. We hear of no tergiversation when Jericho was to 
be destroyed : " man and woman, young and old, ox, sheep, 
and ass, were put to the edge of the sword." -f What a phil- 
osophical command over the tender passions must Joshua 
have acquired to enable him to smite with the sword, J and 
utterly destroyj the inhabitants of Ai, Libnah, Lachnish, He- 
bron, Debir, &c., especially § as the hardness of their heart 
was no fault of theirs, but proceeded from the Lord ! How 
truly great, how far above the commqp weakness of human- 
ity, appears the man after God's own heart, at the taking of 
the city of Rabbah ! || " He brought forth the people that 
were therein, and put them under harrows of iron, and under 
axes of iron, and made them pass through the brick kiln." 
ye greatly inexorable heroes ! Ye Jews ! Ye Span- 

* See Marraontel's preface to the Incas, and the authors there cited. 
t Joshua vi. 31. X Joshua x. 10. § Joshua x. 20. || Sam. xii. 29, 31. 




122 AN EYE-OPENER. 

iards ! Ye firm and zealous of ancient and modern, if any 
exist ! Pity the wretch who admires your virtues, but whose 
eye overflows at the recital of your deeds ! And thou, 
mighty and benevolent Power ! forgive the heart, that, shocked 
at the tortures inflicted on thy creatures, is unwilling to ac- 
knowledge thee as the author of them. 

18. The most rational men reject the science of magic or 
witchcraft as a silly imposition on the credulity of mankind ; 
but we believers, who have nothing to do with reason, but 
are guided by the undefinable faculty called faith, are per- 
fectly ready to admit it, and deplore the infidelity of that 
parliament which repealed the acts by which so many of that 
profession lost their lives. 

The Witch of Endor * and the Jewish law both prove, by 
divine argument, the existence of such professors; though, 
like miracles, they now cease to appear. But, notwithstand- 
ing this, we should be glad of an argument or two from you, 
our spiritual directors, which might establish this important 
point of doctrine as well in the minds of reasonable man as 
the minds of men who, by the means of the additional fac- 
ulty, /mYA, are above reason. 

19. In the last battle of Saul with the Philistines, j" near 
G-ilboa, Saul, being sorely wounded, requested his armor- 
bearer to draw his sword, and run him through ; but his armor- 
bearer would not : therefore Saul took a sword, and fell upon 
it. And when his armor-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he fell 
likewise upon his sword, and died with him.| L'avid was, at 
this time, returning from the pursuit of the Amalekites ; when, 
on the third day after Saul's death, a young man came out of 
the camp from Saul, with his clothes rent, and earth upon his 
head. He brought the news of Saul's death ; the circum- 
stances of which, upon David's inquiry, he reported to be, 
that, coming by chance upon Mount Grilboa, he beheld that 
Saul leaned on his spear, and that the chariots and horsemen 
followed hard after him. Saul, looking behind him, called 
the young man, and requested him to slay him : so I stood 
upon him, said the young man, and slew him, because I was 
sure that he could not live after he was fallen ; and I took the 

* 1 Sam. xxviii. f 1 Sam. xxxi. J 2 Sam. i. 



DOUBTS OF INFIDELS. 123 

crown that was on his head, and the bracelets that were on 
his arm, and have brought them hither unto my lord. David 
rewarded the mistaken compassion of this young man by 
commanding him to be put to death. 

20. David commanded that the children of Israel should 
be taught the use of the bow : behold it is written in the 
Book of Jashar.* Many difficulties arise here about the 
Book of Jashar. It was extant previous to the writing of the 
Book of Joshua,f the author of that book quoting it; and, by 
the foregoing text, it appears that it was not finished till after 
the accession of David to the throne of Israel. Now, if 
Joshua wrote the account of transactions, as it is generally 
believed, the author of Jashar must have lived upwards of 
four hundred years ; and, if the Book of Joshua was not 
written till after the death of David, and by an unknown 
author, the infidels will affirm, that it comes under the des- 
cription which is at the beginning of the second of these 
questions ; and the misfortune is, we do not know how 
to confute them. But we hope you will easily remove this, 
among many other great difficulties, now your long dormant 
zeal is at length awakened. Our enemies have reproached us 
with the examples of the primitive church. They observe that 
the priests were poor and indefatigable, but were not pam- 
pered and lazy. Fat benefices, they say, cause a total eclipse 
of the light of religion, by obtruding their opaque substance 
between the eye of the priest and the kingdom of heaven. 
But, alas, how palpably they mistake ! 

The ancient priests were ignorant of their business : they 
despised riches because they knew no better; or, perhaps, 
because they could not get them. But how are the under- 
standings of men enlightened ! How great the wisdom of 
the modern times ! How are the sciences improved ! Has 
it not been for many centuries discovered, that pain and mor- 
tification are fit companions for the devil, and therefore totally 
improper for saints ? Can a poor wretch, inured to penury 
and the scourge, be suddenly reconciled to happiness and 
heaven ? Instead of enjoying the promised land, would he 
not be prescribing himself a fast ? And when it became him 

* Sam. i. 18. t Josh. x. 13. 



124 AN EYE-OPENER. 

to sleep recumbent on his coucli of blessedness, would lie not 
envy the damned their whips and scorpions? So difficult it 
is to eradicate long-confirmed habits. But wherefore dwell 
on so unprofitable a subject ? The wisdom of our divines 
has taught them to avoid such absurdities, to detect such 
errors. They will not lose their relish for pleasure for want 
of practice. 

21. David, " by the instigation of the Lord, numbered 
the people of Israel and Judah ; "* but afterwards, being 
probably ignorant by whose instigation he had acted, he re- 
pented of the deed. This repentance did not excuse him in 
the sight of the Lord ; who offered him to choose either 
"seven years'" famine, three months' defeat before his ene- 
mies, or three days' pestilence. David chose the latter; and 
seventy thousand men died. This memorable event has not 
escaped the inspired penman of the Book of Chronicles,*!* 
who affirms " that Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked 
David to number them ; " but (xod was displeased with this 
thing, and therefore smote Israel. J David, repenting, was 
offered from Grod his choice, " either three years' famine, 
three months' destruction before his enemies, or three days' 
pestilence," the latter of which he chose; and there died of 
Israel seventy thousand men. 

Our too curious and inquisitive opposers, who are unwil- 
ling to believe " cunningly devised fables,"§ inquire how it 
could be a crime in David to number the people, especially 
as it was by the instigation of the Lord. They beg to be in- 
formed whether the Lord and Satan are one and the same 
person ; and, if not, which of the two was the instigator of 
this unhappy business, — which of the two "infallible" and 
" inspired " writers tells the lie ? Lastly, they can not con- 
ceive how the seven years' famine in the Book of Samuel is 
dwindled into three in the Chronicles. To all these ques- 
tions we answer, that it was sufficient to make this action of 
David's criminal, that the Lord disliked it after it was done ; 
and, as to its being done by his instigation, we must observe, 

* 2 Sam. xxiv. f 1 Chron. xxi. 

X The difference of the numbering here from that in Samuel is 270,000, — 
no trifling difference. 
§ 2 Peter, i. 16. 



DOUBTS OP INFIDELS. 125 

that it is no uncommon thing for the Lord to be angry with 
his servants for obeying his commands. 

22. The instance of Balaam is a case in point.* Hence 
we infer, that, in the command of the Lord, there is always a 
clause implied or understood, which leaves it to the discretion 
of the faithful to act as they think proper. It is true that 
this position leads immediately to the doctrines of the Jesuits, 
which have been so universally abhorred. But why need we 
regard the abhorrence of the world, when we are convinced 
that our tenets are scriptural ? With regard to the affairs of 
satan and the Lord, we leave it to your management, but 
can not help observing with derision the futility of the olbjec- 
tions respecting the three and seven years' famine. They 
have little skill in divine arithmetic, if this affords them any 
embarrassment. They know nothing of the sublime logic by 
which divines prove three to be one and one to be three. 
For example, if it were affirmed that Eldon is a lord, and 
yet there are not three lords, but one lord, this would be 
termed absolute and ridiculous nonsense, notwithstanding 
their close ministerial union. But, in holy matters, it is quite 
otherwise, 1 1 as might easily be elucidated by instances too sa- 
cred to be commented upon by any unconsecrated individ- 
ual. 

23. Another instance of the imperfection of the art of 
arithmetic, as it is erroneously taught in our schools, appears 
in its affording no rule by which the two genealogies of Jesus 
Christ may be reconciled to each other. Matthew reckons 
twenty-seven generations from David to Christ. Luke reck- 
ons forty- two ; and the names totally disagree. Matthew 
traces the descent from Solomon, and Luke from Nathan, both 
sons of David. According to our feeble notions, twenty-seven 
can not be equal to forty-two; neither can Nathan, &c., be 
imagined to be Solomon, &c. The infidels suppose that the 
two evangelists, rather than the Church, should be without 
the genealogy of its founder ; but we good Christians, who 
know that both writers were infallible and inspired, are ready 
to reject the clearest axioms of mere- human science, and 

* Qu. 16. 

t See an excellent specimen of this in the creed commonly ascribed to 
§t. Athanasius. 



126 AN EYE-OPENER. 

allow, that, in sacred matters, the greater number may be 
equal to the less. 

These cavilers and infidels also demand how these genealo- 
gies of Joseph prove that Jesus was the son of David, when 
it is avowed that Joseph was not his father ? But they do 
not consider that a married man is obliged to father all the 
children his wife may produce ', and, if this answer does not 
satisfy them, they must, at all events, confess that Joseph 
was father-in-law to Jesus by being married to his mother ; 
consequently Jesus was son (in law) to Joseph, Q. E. D. 
As there is no answer for the perverseness of men, there may 
perhaps be some whom even this demonstration will not sat- 
isfy. To these, we offer an argument discovered by the truly 
profound Mr. Pascal.* He justly observes, that, when two 
witnesses disagree in the circumstance of a fact, we ought 
to believe them so much the more readily on that account, as 
it shows that they did not contrive the story in concert. 
This remark, it is to be hoped, will likewise put an end to 
the absurd custom which prevails in our courts of justice, of 
discrediting evidences which contradict each other, such con- 
tradictions being in reality a mark of truth,'' ^' a ceux que 
jprennent bien les choses^ 

24. It is much to be wished that some of our spiritual 
directors, who have leisure time and large incomes, would be 
at the pains to rectify and adjust to the standard of holy 
writ the many errors and omissions of profane historians. 

When Christ was baptized by John, the heavens were 
opened, and a voice was heard declaring his divine origin. 
Such a prodigy must have awakened the attention of all 
Judea ; yet we find the historians totally silent on the matter. 
It is strange that the horrid massacre of the children by the 
command of Herod should be totally unnoticed by Josephus, 
and even by the Evangelists, Mark, Luke, and John.f Mat- 

* Les " faiblesses " les plus apparentes sont des "forces" a ceux qui 
prennent bien les choses. Par exemple, les deux genealogies de St. Mat- 
thieu, et de St. Luc, il est visible, que cela n'a pasete fait de concert. 
Voyez reraarques sur les Pens^es de Pascal Ed. G^n6ve, 1773. 

t If sucli an act of cruelty had been committed, it could not by any 
contrivance have been concealed; and many of the most impartial histori- 
ans of the Romans, living at that period, would have taken care to record 
such a pubhc act of barbarity on the part of Herod. 



DOUBTS OP INFIDELS. 127 

thew alone mentions it; but his authority is fully sufficient to 
justify an interpolation (like many others) into the text of 
the other three evangelists, who are defective in that partic- 
ular. It is well known with what success the primitive 
Christians began the holy work of interpolating, suppressing, 
forging, and altering profane histories ; but as we believed 
their piety always prevented their meddling with the sacred 
text, notwithstanding the arguments of infidels, who attempt- 
ed to prove the contrary, these holy frauds have been found 
of infinite service in establishing the cause of Christianity. 
Why do we forbear to pursue their great and laudable exam- 
ple ? The modesty or the mistaken candor of the ancients * 
has allowed them to interlope no more than one paragraph 
concerning Jesus into the text of Josephus. Would it not 
show our superior zeal, and be of infinite service to posterity, 
if some divine of the present age would put the narrative of 
Matthew into the same text ? But, alas ! the sneers of our 
adversaries, the unbelivers, have prevailed too much ; and 
good works like these are now no more. 

25. About eighteen centuries ago (according to the proph- 
ecy of Christ and his apostle Paul),f the sun was darkened, 
the stars fell from heaven, the sign of the Son of man was 
seen, the Lord himself descended from heaven with a shout, 
the trumpets of the archangels were heard, the dead in Christ 
arose, St. Paul and others of the elect who were then living 
were caught up in the clouds, went to meet the Lord in the 
air, and have been with him ever since. It is truly astonish- 
ing that a phenomenon so awful as the destruction of the 
system of nature should have made no interruption in the 
state of nations and affairs at that time ; that all the histori- 
ans should omit to record so dreadful an event : nay, that 
they should survive it ; and that the primitive fathers should 
forbear to mention a circumstance which was so well calcu- 
lated to establish the Christian religion, and confute all the 
arguments of the Jews, heathens, and unbelievers. When 
you set about the work of rectifying ancient histories, you 
will doubtless be careful to insert an account of this tremen- 

* Josephus, de Antiq. Jud. lib. xviii. cap. 4. 

t Matt. xvi. 27, 28. Matt. xxiv. 29, 34. Mark xxi. 24. Luke xxi. 25, 
33. 1 Thess. iv. 16. 17. 



128 AN EYE-OPENER. 

dous occurrence; for Christians can have no doubt that it 
really happened, since it was so directly foretold, both in time 
and circumstances, by Christ and his apostle Paul. 

26. The oracles of Delphos were obscure, and capable of va- 
rious interpretations ; but the prophecies of sacred writ are all 
so clear and obvious, they shine so bright by their own native 
lustre, that no one has ever pretended to doubt its divine 
origin except those infidels who are unfortunately blinded by 
the too great suJBfusion of light which the Scriptures so con- 
tinually emit. If the gift of curing the blind be not entirely 
lost among the apostles at the present day, it must be Chris- 
tian charity to describe the symptoms of their disorder, tkat 
you may attempt the cure. These unfortunate people observe, 
that Grod said to Adam, concerning the tree of knowledge of 
good and evil,* " In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou 
shalt surely die." He transgressed, and, nevertheless, 
lived at least eight hundred years afterwards. They observe 
that the great evangelical prophet, Isaiah,f could foretell the 
downfall of Babylon by Cyrus, but could not tell the name 
of the Messiah, though his coming was an event of infinitely 
greater consequence : nay, they even charge him with a blun- 
der, if we admit the opinion that Christ was intended by the 
names Mahershalal-hashbaz and Immanuel,J since he wa^ 
never called by them. But they impiously solve this diffi- 
culty by affirming, that Isaiah might take the advantage of 
writing his prophecy concerning Cyrus after the events took 
place, but could not avail himself of the same pious cunning 
in the afi"air of the Messiah. And, in fact, we, the true be- 
lievers, are in great want of evidence to overthrow their sup- 
position. They demand, if the prophecies be so evident from 
those of the heathens, how happened it that the whole Jew- 
ish nation then living, together with the Angel Gabriel, 
should mistake, and suppose the kingdom of heaven to be 
temporal, and that it should not be discovered that his king- 
dom was not of this world until his enemies, the unbelievers, 
had prevailed, and sent him out of it. They ask whether 
those inspired writers who prophecied concerning things of 
no consequence, such as the thirty pieces of silver and the 

* Gen. ii. 17. t Isa. xiv. and xlv. J Isa. viii. 



DOUBTS OF INFIDELS. 129 

casting lots for his garments, could not, with equal certainty, 
have predicted the more important circumstances of his death 
and resurrection ? In short, they beg to be shown a single 
prophecy concerning which divines are agreed, and desire to 
know why, in those days of gospel light, the great prophecy 
of John, the divine, should be more obscure and enigmatical 
than any which was written during the typical and shadowy 
dispensation of Moses ? All which absurd questions you 
will, no doubt, answer to the great joy of us weak Chris- 
tians. 

27. How came it to pass, say our enemies, the cavilers 
and unbelievers, that Jesus, the Son of Grod, should curse a 
fig-tree * for being without fruit in March ? Was he, by 
whom the world was made,"}" ignorant that it was not the 
season for figs ? They likewise demand whether it was by 
design or mistake that he affirmed | that wheat does not pro- 
duce fruit unless it first die. If Scripture was not meant to 
instruct philosophers, yet why should it mislead them ? But, 
though these infidels may please to assert that wheat in our 
day is governed by laws directly contrary to these, as all nat- 
uralists indeed acknowledge, yet who can affirm that it was 
so eighteen hundred years ago? On the contrary, since 

these things are recorded in the sacred writings, we ought to 
submit, and believe that the system of nature is changed 
from what it was in ancient times. This event probably 
came to pass when the sun was darkened and the stars fell 
from heaven, as mentioned § in a former question. 

28. You, no doubt, will readily explain and settle the 
mysterious disagreement between John the Baptist and Jesus 
Christ.jl John being asked if he was Elias, answered, I am 
not ; but Jesus ^ affirms the contrary. As few, even of the 
Christians, have faith enough to believe that John was and 
was not Elias at the same time, a word or two of explanation 
would afi"ord them infinite satisfaction. Commentators in 
divinity can do miracles in the way of explanation ; but, un- 
fortunately for us all, other miracles have long ceased, though 
at no time so much wanted as at present. 

* Matt. xxi. 18. t Mark xi. 13, 20. 
t John i. 3. § Ques. 26. |1 John i. 21. f Matt. xi. 14. 



130 AN EYE-OPENER. 

29. Out of fifty gospels, we receive four as canonical, to 
restore the fruitful product of that spirit of forgery for which 
the Christian's world has always been celebrated. Their 
piety was indefatigable in burning the books of the heretics 
and unbelievers ; and the same piety was not spared in fur- 
nishing apocryphal books. It is for the salvation of man- 
kind that Christianity should prevail ; and how can its propa- 
gation be advanced, and its dominion confirmed, more than by 
preventing the arguments against it from being exposed? 
Some may indeed pretend that this mode of proceeding is 
tyrannical, and destructive of the rights of mankind ; but we, 
the faithful, insist that it is zealous and politic. How can a 
man be said to be injured, even if we allow that he is 
cheated, since he is cheated into salvation, though perhaps 
against his will ? You will be doing a singular service to us 
weaker Christians, if you will point out by what particular 
emanation of the Holy Spirit the Church was enabled to 
select the divine out of such a number of apocryphal writ- 
ings. Our enemies, the infidels, say that time has obliter- 
ated the primitive disputes on this subject, and that the 
sanction of custom has confirmed the authority of the four 
Gospels, which, far from external and historical, have not 
even the internal evidence of truth. They observe that the 
Grospel of Mark, though evidently an abridgment of that of 
Matthew, yet difiers from it in many very material particu- 
lars; that the grand circumstance of the conspiracy, by 
which Christ lost his life, is told difi'erently and discordantly 
by all the four. They express the highest astonishment that 
the sending of Jesus to Herod by Pilate should be related 
by Luke, and that the other three evangelists should not only 
omit that occurrence, but relate the proceeding in this afi"air 
so as to entirely exclude the possibitity of its insertion. 
They think it also impossible that an earthquake should rend 
rocks, and that many saints should rise from the dead, and go 
into the holy city, as Matthew relates, and yet that these 
great events should not only have escaped cotemporary histo- 
rians, but even the other three evangelists. And to this 
they add, that it is particularly strange and amazing, that 
John, who was present at the crucifixion, should not only 
forbear to mention any one of the terrible appearances re- 



DOUBTS OF INFIDELS. 131 

corded in Matthew on that occasion, but that even the dark- 
ness of three hours' duration, which must have made the 
most lasting impression on every individual in Judea, should 
also be by him totally unnoticed. 

30. The malevolence and incredulity of our adversaries, 
the unbelievers, are visible in nothing so much as the criti- 
cism they make on the resurrection. They complain, and 
with some degree of reason, that this' most miraculous event, 
instead of possessing that extraordinary and uncommonly 
clear evidence which its incredible nature requires, bears, on 
the contrary, every mark of a forgery. Instead of Christ's 
reappearing to all the world, that the world might believe, 
he is said to have appeared to his disciples, who were the 
only men on earth whose evidence could be exceptionable in 
the case, — men who, already engaged in the attempt of form- 
ing a sect or party, could be by no means disinterested in 
their report, — the only men on earth who could be suspected 
of forgery in the present instance. These are the men, say 
our enemies, who were to preach Jesus Christ to the world, 
and to find arguments to support the fact; which Christ might 
have incontrovertihli/ established. But the generation was un- 
worthy of that condescension, we reply, which they wickedly 
paraphrase thus : " God, who desire th not the death of a sinner, 
left them in their sins that they might die. God, who spared 
not his beloved Son, but gave him to the bitterness of death 
that sinners might he saved, chose, nevertheless, to deprive 
all mankind of the proper evidence of the resurrection, be- 
cause the Jews of that age were sinners.'^ Mercy is the 
character of the first act ] but how shall we characterize the 
latter ? Is the God of the Christians inconsistent with him- 
self ? Did the great and merciful Being act thus ? Did he 
inspire four men to write accounts of the resurrection, which 
disagree with each other in almost every circumstance ? 
Does his divine truth bear the resemblance of forgery and 
invention, that we may show our faith and reliance on him 
by making sacrifice to our reason, and believing by an act, 
not of the understanding, but of the will ? But why, thou 
Supreme Governor ! why hast thou given us reason, if reason 
be the accursed thing which we ought to cast from us ? Or, 
rather, is not reason the first and only revelation from thee ? 



1-32 AN EYE-OPENER. 

and are not those enthusiasts accursed, who, promulgating 
vile systems unworthy of thee, find their best purposes are 
not to be accomplished till they have first deprived us of 
thy best gift ? 

These, reverend sirs, are the reflections of infidels and un- 
believers, — reflections which our truly Christian zeal and de- 
testation would have prevented us from repeating, if we had 
not been supported by a pleasing anticipation of the glorious 
and satisfactory manner in which they will be answered, ex- 
plained, and overthrown by you, to the entire satisfaction and 
conviction of us weak Christians. Not by persecution, pains, 
penalties, fines, and imprisonment ; otherwise the unbelievers 
will then sneeringly say, that you are incapable of answering 
them ; or, what is more unfortunate, that they are really un- 
answerable. 



QUESTIONS or ZEPA 

TO THE 

DOOTOES OF DIYEN^ITT. 



He that will not reason is a bigot; he that can not is a fool; he who dares 
not is a slave." 



Reverend Sirs : — 

1. How must I proceed in order to prove that the Jews 
were, during four thousand years, the favored people of 
God? 

2. Wherefore should Grod, whom we can not, without the 
charge of blasphemy, regard as unjust, have abandoned the 
whole earth for the sake of the little Jewish horde, and af- 
terwards have given up this little horde for another that was, 
during two hundred years, still more diminutive and con- 
temptible ? 

3. For what purpose has he performed a number of in- 
comprehensible miracles, in favor of this pitiful nation, be- 
fore the period of all authentic history ? Why has he 
ceased to perform such prodigies for some centuries past? 
and why do we, who are undoubtedly God's own people, 
never behold any of these mighty exhibitious ? 

4. How shall I reconcile the chronology of the Chinese, 
of the Chaldeans, of the Phoenicians, of the Egyptians, &c., 
with that of the Jews ? and how shall I acquire sufficient 
ingenuity to make agree forty different ways, adopted by the 
various commentators of computing time ? Should I say 
God dictated the Jewish books, the reply would be, that God 
must certainly then be ignorant of chronology. 

ISS 



134 AN EYE-OPENER. 

5. What special argument must I adopt to prove that the 
Books of Moses were written by him in the desert ? Could 
he say with propriety that he wrote beyond the Jordan, when 
he never passed that river ? I am afraid I shall be told that 
Grod was also ignorant of geography. 

6. 'The book entitled Joshua expresses that Joshua caused 
Deuteronomy to be engraven on some stones that were plas- 
tered over with mortar. This passage of Joshua, as well as 
many passages of ancient authors, evidently proves, that the 
Oriental people engraved their laws and observations on 
bricks and stones. The Pentateuch informs us, that when 
the Jews were in the desert they wanted even food and cloth- 
ing. When they had neither tailors nor shoemakers, it is not 
very likely there were persons among them of sufficient abil- 
ity to engrave a large volume. And how would so large a 
work engraven in mortar be preserved ? 

7. Which is the best method of refuting the objections of 
the learned, who find in the Pentateuch the names of towns 
which had no existence at that time ; precepts for kings, 
whom the Jews then held in abhorrence, and who did not 
reig# over them till seven hundred years after the time of 
Moses j in fine, passages in which the author, who must have 
been much posterior to Moses, betrays himself in saying, 
" The bed of Og^ which is seen even to this day at Ramatha ; '' 
" The Canaanite was then in the land," &c. ? These savans, 
taking their stand as it were upon the difficulties and contra- 
dictions which they impute to the Jewish chronicles, may 
give me some little trouble, 

8. Is the Book of Genesis to be taken in a literal or in an 
allegorical sense ? Did Grod in reality take out one of Adam's 
ribs, in order to make a woman ? Why, then, is it expressly 
said before that he created man, male and female ? How 
could the light be created before the sun ? How was the 
light divided from the darkness, since the latter is nothing 
but the privation of light ? How could there have been day 
before the sun was in existence ? How could there be a 
firmament formed in the midst of the waters, when it is ap- 
parent there is no firmament at all, and that this false notion 
of a firmament is only an imagination of the ancient Greeks ? 
There are persons who conjecture that Genesis was not writ- 



QUESTIONS OF ZEPA. 135 

ten until after the Jews had obtained some knowledge of the 
erroneous philosophy of other nations ; and I shall be grieved, 
perhaps, to hear it asserted, that God was as little versed in 
physics as in chronology and geography. 

9. What shall I say of the Garden of Eden, from which 
there went a river that divided itself into four branches, viz., 
the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Pison, and the Gihon, which 
flows in Ethiopia, and consequently can be no other than the 
Nile, the source of which is a thousand leagues distant from 
that of the Euphrates ? It will again be observed, that God 
was a very indifferent geographer. 

10. I wish, with all my heart, I could have tasted the 
fruit that grew upon the tree of knowledge. The prohibi- 
tion not to eat of it appears to me very strange ; for God, hav- 
ing endowed man with reason, should have encouraged him 
to instruct himself. Did he desire to be worshiped only by 
a fool ? I wish, also, I could have conversed with the serpent, 
since it possessed so much intelligence ; but I should like to 
know in what language it spoke. That great philosopher, 
the Emperor Julian, put this question to the great St. Cyril, 
who could not resolve it ; but he replied to the Emperor ; 
" ^Tis you who are the serpent.^' St. Cyril, it would seem, 
was not very polite ; but you will observe he did not utter 
this piece of theological impertinence till after Julian's death. 
It is said in Genesis, that the serpent should eat the dust of 
the earth ; but you know Genesis is incorrect on this point, 
and that the dust alone can not nourish any being. With 
regard to the Deity, who comes every day at noon to walk in 
the garden, and who holds a familiar conversation with Adam 
and Eve, as well as with the serpent, I must say all this 
would appear very pleasant to a fourth person. As, however, 
I believe you are better adapted for the company that visited 
Joseph and Mary in the stable, I shall not propose to you a 
journey to the Garden of Eden, especially as the entrance is 
guarded by a cherubim armed from top to toe. The rab- 
bins, it is true, acknowledge that cherubim means a bullock. 
A strange sentinel, truly. Have the goodness to inform me, 
at least, what a cherubim really is. 

11. How am I to explain the history of the angels who 
became enamored of the daughters of men, and begat giants 



136 AN EYE-OPENER. 

upon them ? Will it not be objected that this trait is taken 
from the pagan fables ? As, however, we know the Jews in- 
vented all things in the desert, and that they were a very 
ingenious people, it is clear that all other nations are indebted 
to them for their knowledge. Homer, Plato, Virgil, knew 
nothing but what they learned of the Jews. Does not this 
fact admit of demonstration ? 

12. How shall I escape from the deluge ; from the catar- 
acts that poured through the windows of heaven, that has no 
windows ; from all the animals that arrived from Japan, Af- 
rica, America, and Australia, and that were shut up in a 
great box, with sufficient provisions and water to last them a 
whole twelve-month ; to say nothing respecting that interval 
of time in which the earth, still too humid by the absorption 
of the waters, would be incapable of producing any thing for 
their subsistence ? How could the little family of Noah suf- 
fice to serve out daily to all these animals their proper aliment, 
it being composed of only eight persons ? 

13. How shall I impart to the history of the tower of 
Babel the coloring of truth ? Of course, this tower must 
have been higher than the pyramids of Egypt, since Grod 
permitted these pyramids to be built. Did it reach to Venus, 
or only to the moon ? 

14. By what art shall I justify the downright lies uttered 
by Abraham, the father of the faithful ; who, at the age of 
one hundred and thirty-five years, made the beautiful Sarah 
to pass for his sister in Egypt and at Kadesh, so that the 
kings of these same countries became enamored of her, and 
made her many presents ? How base a thing to sell one's 
wife ! 

15. Furnish me with some reasons that shall explain why 
Grod, having given his commands to Abraham that all his 
posterity should be circumcised, the people under Moses were 
not subjected to this operation ? 

16. Can I, without assistance, determine whether the three 
angels to whom Sarah served up an entire calf for dinner 
had tangible bodies, or whether they only borrowed the 
forms they appeared in ? and how should it happen that the 
two angels Grod sent to Sodom should excite in the Sodomites 
certain abominable inclinations ? These heavenly messengers 



QUESTIONS OP ZEPA. 137 

must have been extremely pretty. But wherefore did Lot, 
eatitled the just, offer his two daughters to the Sodomites in 
the room of the two angels ? They went to bed now and 
then, it seems, to their father. You must allow that this was 
not quite decent. 

17. Will my hearers believe me, when I inform them that 
Lot's wife was changed into a statue of salt ? What reply 
shall I make, should they tell me that this story is nothing 
but a gross imitation of the ancient fable of Euodia, and that 
such a statue would dissolve in the rain ? 

18. What shall I urge in justification of the benedictions 
that fell on Jacob the just, who deceived his father Isaac, 
and who robbed Laban, his father-in-law ? When I relate 
that Grod appeared to Jacob at the top of an immense ladder, 
and that Jacob fought one whole night with an angel, what 
shall I add by way of explanation ? 

19. What must I say upon the subject of the Jews' so- 
journ in Egypt, and of their escape from thence ? In Exo- 
dus, we are informed that they remained four hundred years 
in Egypt 3 but, in making a just calculation, we only find it to 
be two hundred and five. How came Pharaoh's daughter to 
bathe in the Nile, where it appears no one ever bathes, on 
account of the crocodiles ? 

20. Moses having espoused the daughter of an idolater, 
why did not God, when he selected him for his prophet, re- 
proach him on this account? How was it that Pharaoh's 
magicians performed the same miracles as Moses did, with 
only the exception of covering the country with lice and other 
vermin ? How could they turn all the waters into blood, 
since Moses had already caused them to undergo this trans- 
formation ? Wherefore did Moses, conducted as he was by 
the Almighty, and placed at the head of six hundred and 
thirty thousand combatants, take to flight with his people, 
instead of possessing himself of Egypt, wherein all the first 
born had been destroyed by God himself? From the time 
that Egypt was first noticed in real history, it never was ca- 
pable of assembling an army of one hundred thousand men. 
Why did Moses, in flying with his troops from the land of 
Goshen, instead of going in a straight-forward direction to 
Canaan, traverse the half of Egypt, and then retrace his path 



138 AN EYE-OPENER. 

to Pi-baliirotli, a spot situated over against Memphis, between 
Baal-zephon and the Red Sea ? In fine, how could Pharaoh 
follow him with all his cavalry, since it is declared, in the fifth 
plague of Egypt, that Grod caused all the cattle to perish ? 
Besides, Egypt, being intersected by so many canals, never 
had but a small body of cavalry. 

21. How am I to reconcile what is said in Exodus with 
St. Stephen's discourse in the Acts of the Apostles, and with 
the passages in Jeremiah and in Amos ? In Exodus we are 
told that the Jews sacrificed to Jehovah in the desert during 
forty years. Jeremiah, Amos, and St. Stephen say that 
neither sacrifice nor victims were ofiered during all the above 
time. According to Exodus, they constructed the tabernacle , 
in which was deposited the ark of the covenant; and, accord- 
ing to St. Stephen, in the Acts, they bore about with them 
the tabernacles of Moloch and of Remphan. 

22. I am not a sufiiciently good chemist to extricate my- 
self in respect to the aff"air of the golden calf, which we 
are told in Exodus was formed in one day, and reduced by 
Moses into ashes. Are these to be considered as two mira- 
cles, or are they two things possible for human art to accom- 
plish ? 

23. Is it also to be considered as a miracle that the con- 
ductor of a nation, in the midst of a desert, could cause the 
throats of twenty-three thousand men belonging to this 
nation to be cut by one single tribe out of twelve ; and that 
twenty-three thousand men permitted themselves to be mas- 
sacred without making any defense ? 

24. Ought I also to regard as a miracle, or as an ordi- 
nary act of justice, that twenty-four thousand Hebrews 
should be put to'tieath, because one among them had lain 
with a Midianitish woman, while Moses himself had married 
a Midianite ? And were not these Hebrews, whom they 
represent to xis as being so ferocious, a somewhat civil sort 
of folks to suff"er their throats thus to be cut for the sake of 
the wenches ? 

25. What explanation shall I give to that law which pro- 
hibits the eating of the hare because it clieios the cud, and is 
not cloven-footed, while in fact hares have cloven feet and do 
not ruminate? We have already seen that this excellent 



QUESTIONS OF ZEPA. 139 

book lias made God a bad geographer, a bad chronologist, a 
bad natural philosopher ; and it does not make him a better 
naturalist. What reasons shall I give in favor of several 
other laws, not a whit less sage ; such as that of the waters 
of jealousy, and of the punishment of death against any 
man who should lay with his wife at the time of her monthly 
indisposition ? Shall I be able to justify these barbarous 
and ridiculous laws, which, it is said, emanated from God 
himself ? 

26. What must I say to convince those who may seem 
astonished that a miracle should be necessary in order to 
pass the Jordan, a river which, in its widest part, measures 
only forty-five feet, — a space which the smallest raft would en- 
able one to clear, — a river which was fordable in so many 
places, as witness the forty-two thousand Ephraimites, mur- 
dered at one of the fords of this river by their brethren ? 

27. What answer am I to make to those who may ask how 
it happened that the walls of Jericho fell at the sound of the 
rams' horns ? 

28. What excuse shall I make for the courtesan Rahab, 
in respect to the deed by which she betrayed her country ? 
Wherefore was this treason necessary, since the mere sound 
of the rams' horns would have been quite sufficient to take 
the town ? And how shall I fathom the depth of the divine 
decrees which have ordained that our divine Saviour, Jesus 
Christ, should have his origin deduced from this courtesan 
Kahab, as well as from the incest that Tamar committed with 
Judah, her father-in-law, and the adultery of David and 
Bathsheba? So much the ways of God are incomprehen- 
sible. 

29. Must I, or .must I not, give my approbation to Joshua, 
who hung up thirty-one petit kings, and usurped their estates ; 
that is to say, their villages ? 

30. How shall I speak of the battle which Joshua fought 
against the Amorites at Beth-horon, on the road to Gibeon ? 
The Lord caused it to rain down from heaven immense 
stones all the way from Beth-horon to Azekah. There is a dif- 
ference of five leagues from Beth-horon to Azekah. Thus the 
Amorites were exterminated by rocks, which tumbled down 
from the sky during their march of five leagues. The Scrip- 



140 AN EYE-OPENER. 

tures inform us, that this event took place at noon ; where- 
fore, then, did Joshua command the sun and moon to stand 
still in the middle of the firmament, in order to have suffi- 
cient time to finish the destruction of a little troop which had 
been, it seems, already exterminated ? For what reason did 
he command the sun to stop at mid-day? Could the sun 
and moon, then, remain stationary for a whole day ? What 
commentator shall I have recourse to, in order to explain this 
extraordinary fact ? 

31. What apology shall I make for Jephtha, who immolated 
his own daughter, and caused the throats to be cut of forty- 
two thousand Jews of the tribe of Ephraim who could not 
pronounce the word Shibboleth ? 

32. Ought I to affirm, or deny, that the Jewish laws no- 
where announce punishments and rewards after death ? How 
comes it to pass that neither Moses nor Joshua have spoken 
of the immortality of the soul, — a dogma known by the Chal- 
deans, the Persians, and the Grreeks, — a dogma which was 
not in vogue among the Jews till after the time of Alexan- 
der, and which was always rejected by the Sadducees because 
not found in the Pentateuch ? 

33. What coloring shall I give to the history of the 
Levite who, having arrived upon his ass at Gaba, a town 
belonging to the Benjaminites, became an object of unnatural 
passion to the G-abaanites ? It appears he gave up his wife 
to them, whom they abused the whole night long, which vio- 
lence was the cause of her death the following day. 

34. I have much need of your instruction, in order to 
comprehend this verse of the nineteenth chapter of Judges : 
" The Lord accompanied Judah ; and he got possession of the 
mountains : but he could not defeat the inhabitants of the 
valley, because they had a great number of chariots armed 
with scythes.'^ I can not comprehend, by the feeble light 
within me, how the Grod of heaven and earth, who had so 
often changed the order of nature, and suspended her eter- 
nal laws in favor of the Jewish people, could not contrive to 
vanquish the inhabitants of a little valley, because they were 
in possession of armed chariots. Can it be true, as many 
learned men pretend, that the Jews regarded their God as a 
local divinity and protector, who was at one time more and at 



QUESTIONS OF ZEPA. 141 

another time less powerful than the god of their enemies ? 
As respects this opinion, is it not confirmed by this reply of 
Jephtha : " You possess what your god Chemosh has given 
you ; permit us, then, to take that which our god Adonai has 
promised us ^' ? 

35. I must also add, that it is difficult to believe there 
were so many armed chariots in a mountainous country, 
where, according to the accounts given in many places of 
Scripture, it was considered great magnificence to be mounted 
upon an ass. 

36. The history of Ehud involves me in still greater diffi- 
culties. I perceive the Jews almost continually in slavery, 
notwithstanding the assistance of their Deity, who had 
bound himself by oath to give them all that country which 
lies between the Nile, the sea, and the Euphrates. They 
had been for eighteen years the subject of a petit king 
named Eglon, when Grod caused Ehud, the son of Gera^ to 
arise in their favor, who could use his left hand with the 
same facility as his right. Ehud, the son of Gera, having 
procured a poinard with two sharp edge^, concealed it under 
his garment, just as Jacques Clements and Ravaillac have 
since contrived to do. He demanded a private audience of 
the king, saying he had a secret of great importance to com- 
municate from the Deity. Eglon rose up respectfully ; and 
Ehud with his left hand thrust the poinard into the king's 
belly. God favored the whole business, which, according to 
the moral sense of all the nations of the earth, appears to 
be rather barbarous. Inform me which is the murder most 
divine, — that perpetrated by St. Ehud, or by St, David, who 
caused the death of Uriah, or that by the blessed Solomon 
who, having seven hundred wives and three hundred concu- 
bines, put to death his brother Adonijah because he asked 
him for one of them ? 

37. I beg of you to inform me by what means Samson 
was enabled to take the three hundred foxes^ tie them to- 
gether by their tails, and attach firebrands to their posteri- 
ors, in order to set fire to the crops of the Philistines. Foxes 
are very seldom found but in woody countries. There were 
no forests in the district ; and it seems to be rather a difficult 
aflfair to take three hundred of these animals alive, and fasten 



142 AN EYE-OPENER. 

them together by their tails. It is said, also, that he slew a 
thousand Philistines with the jaw-bone of an ass, and that 
from one of the teeth-sockets there issued a fountain of water, 
from which he drank to refresh himself after his Herculean 
labors. When the question relates to asses' jaw-hones, and 
their appendant cascades, some eclair cissements are undoubt- 
edly necessary. 

38. I request that you will also give me your instructions 
respecting the good man Tobit, wbo, sleeping with his eyes 
open, was rendered blind by the dung that fell from a swal- 
low ; also as respects the angels who descended from what 
is called the imperial heaven, especially for the purpose of 
going along with Tobit, jun., to the Jew Gabael^ to demand 
of him the money that was owing to Tobit, sen. ; also as re- 
gards the wife of Tobit, jun., who had had seven husbands, 
all of whom were strangled by the devil ; as well as upon ■ 
the method that was taken to restore the sight of the blind 
with a fish's gall. These histories are certainly curious ; and, 
after the Spanish romances, there can be nothing more worthy 
of our attention. The only histories that will bear a compari- 
son with them are those of Judith and Esther. But how 
shall I be able to interpret properly the sacred text, which 
informs us that the charming Judith was a descendant of 
Simeon, the son of Reuben ; although according to the same 
sacred text, which can not record a falsehood, Simeon is rep- 
resented as the brother of Reuben ? 

I am much in love with Esther; and I allow the supposed 
king Ahasuerus to have acted very sensibly by espousing a 
Jewess, and lying with her for six months without having 
had the least knowledge of her family or connections ; and, 
as all the rest appear to be equally consistent, you will not, 
I beg, withhold from me your assistance in this business, 
since you are possessed of such superior wisdom. 

39. I have need of your aid in the Book of Kings full 
as much as in that of Judges, Tobit and his dog, Esther, 
Judith, Ruth, &c. When Saul was declared king, the Jews 
were slaves to the Philistines. Their conquerors did not 
permit them to be possessed of swords or lances. They 
were even obliged to apply to the Philistines when it was 
requisite to have their ploughshares or their axes repaired. 



QUESTIONS OF ZEPA. 143 

However, notwithstanding this, Saul gave battle to the Phil- 
istines, and obtained the victory ; and, in this battle, he is rep- 
resented as being at the head of three hundred and thirty 
thousand soldiers, in a little territory that was not capable of 
furnishing subsistence for thirty thousand souls ; for, at that 
period, he did not possess, at the most, more than one-third 
of the Holy Land ; and the whole of this barren country, at 
the present day, can not maintain more than twenty thou- 
sand inhabitants, the surplus being necessitated to gain a 
livelihood as agents or brokers in the distant cities of Balk, 
Damascus, Tyre, Babylon, &c. 

40. I do not know what to say in justification of Samuel, 
who hewed to pieces King Agag, whom Saul had taken pris- 
oner, and had reserved for ransom. 

I doubt not that you, reverend sirs, will, by the exercise of 
your superior wisdom, extricate me from these apparent diffi- 
culties. 



«C!ITATEUE, PAR PIGAULT ." — ie^rwn. 



LETTER TO THE CLERGY. 



Keverend Fathers : — 

I am not unaware that whosoever attacks received preju- 
dices, or unmasks popular idols, is immediately pronounced 
an infidel ; and, at the word infidel, the superstitious shud- 
der, the Church is alarmed, the priest prepares the fire and 
fagots, the vulgar and ignorant applaud the sacrifice : but, 
notwithstanding this, I am going to write ; and I will take 
care to cite such authorities as can not be invalidated in a 
single instance. 

Methinks I hear you say, '* It is frightful to write against 
the religion of your country/^ — " My dear sir/' I reply, "you 
must admit it to be laudable to imitate the early Christians j 
for you always propose them as models. Now, the early 
Christians certainly abandoned the religion of their country, 
or there could have been no Christianity. But I do not go 
as far as they ; for I merely amuse myself a little, at your ex- 
pense. The early Christians wrote against the religion of 
the empire, and against that of their ancestors, the Jews. 
Their attacks are to be found diffused in those holy writings 
which they have luckily left us, and but for which you would 
only have tradition to found your religion upon, — a religion, 
which, even with these works, dictated by Grod himself, is 
not understood."' — "Sir, you know not what you say." — 
" My dear sir, you are very polite." — " The first Christians 
certainly abandoned the religion of their forefathers ; but it 
was a false religion." — " I agree to that; but then yours is 
no better, as I will prove to you, if you will listen." — " It is 
a pity, sir ; but we have burnt alive two or three writers like 
you." — " Gi-entle sir, the Church abhors blood." — " Yes, it 



LETTER TO THE CLERGY. 145 

does; that is, of the faithful." — "A comfortable explana- 
tion of the text, I grant." — " But as to those unbelievers 
and philosophers." — "Well, my dear sir, what evil have 
they done ? Did they preach the Crusades, or organize the 
massacre of St. Bartholomew ? When I look through his- 
tory, I do not find any examples of massacres and bloody rev- 
olutions caused by the philosophers and unbelievers. These 
are generally the doings of the faithful." 

You are proud of your revelation, and with good reason ; 
for it is no slight matter to have one's religion revealed by 
God himself. But what a pity it is, that the Indian had 
said before you, that Bramah came upon the earth to reveal 
to men the mode of worship most pleasing to him ; and that 
the Scandinavian had said the same thing of Odin, and the 
Peruvian of Manco Capac ! 

" Yes," say you; " but the Indian, the Scandinavian, and 
Peruvian have lied. It is not to such people as these that 
God deigns to reveal himself." — " They say the same of you, 
sir, and I believe with equal reason. But wait a while : we 
are not yet at the end." 

The Persians had their Peri, the Greeks their Demoni, 
the Hebrews their Malikim ; and we have our angels. But 
what reason have we for deriving the angels from the Pa- 
gans? For these reasons: Daniel and Tobias are the first 
who speak of them during the captivity in Chaldea; and the 
learned assure us, that Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel are 
Chaldean names. 

And now, as we are speaking of the devil, perhaps you 
are not aware that neither God nor the devil belongs to you. 
Such is, however, the case ; for they are only the good and 
bad principles, admitted long since in all the East. They 
are Osiris and Typhon, or Ormuzd and Arimanes. 

Not only do you steal from all sides, but you have the awk- 
wardness to spoil what you steal. Both with you and the 
Jews the bad principle is stronger than the good : he mocks 
him, and spoils his work. For instance now, God gives a 
husband to Sarah, daughter of Raguel. Suddenly the devil 
twists his neck around ; and this is the consequence of his 
being intermixed with the quarrels of these two great per- 
sonages. God sees no better mode of making reparation for 

ID 



146 AN EYE-OPENER. 

tLis cruel joke of Satan's than by giving Sarah another hus- 
band ; and he meets the same fate as the first. A third, 
a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, are strangled in the same way, — a 
pretty good clearing of this for Sarah. Ood was now fairly 
at a stand-still ; but an angel came, and told the young To- 
bias that the smoke of the burnt heart of a certain fish had 
power to chase away the devil. It is droll that this angel 
should know more than God himself; and it is evident he did 
so : for, if Grod had been aware of the virtue of the fish's 
heart, why did he not give this receipt to Sarah's second 
husband ? We should naturally conclude that he would not 
have been caught more than once, if he had known how to 
prevent it. 

The liver of this fish had also the virtue of curing blind- 
ness ; and it is a great pity that Tobias, who is very partic- 
ular in giving his history, has not given us a description of 
it. Any of our naturalists would not, certainly, have been so 
very neglectful. Not that we have reason to regret it so 
much for the sake of its hearty for the devil has not troubled 
himself lately to strangle any one ; but the liver would have 
been valuable for the poor old blind people, and also for 
those who, without being blind, see crooked, like my clerical 
brothers.^ 

In the New Testament, the devil shows his power still 
more completely. The Evangelist does not say that Jesus 
went, of his own accord, to the top of a high mountain, from 
whence was discovered all the kingdoms : he says, positively, 
that the devil carried him there. Here, then, we have Satan 
carrying Grod away. This is rather strong, certainly. 

You know well enough, or you ought to know, that Jesus, 
resuscitated, is but an imitation of Adonis, Osiris, and Atis, 
of the Phooenicians, Egyptians, and Phrygians. 

You must also be equally well aware, that Timaeus, of Lo- 
cres, much more ancient than your evangelists, speaks, in 
his " Soul of the World," of the first icord, of the word 

* The compiler is aware that theologians do not cYhira this book as in- 
spiration. Bishop Eusebius, who was present, informs us, that, at the Coun- 
c.l of Nice, this book was rejected as n t canonical by three votes; conse- 
qaentl}-, it lacked three votes of being the inspired work of God. There 
was a motion to reconsider; but finally the Council compromised, by allow- 
ing the Church to receive or reject it, as seemed to them proper. 



LETTER TO THE CLERGY. 147 

spohen, and of the spirit of the world. This trinity of Ti- 
maeus was not fortunate, however. It is not always easy to 
find men ready to believe that three are but one. Plato, 
who had many curious fancies, resuscitated this doctrine of 
Timaeus, and put it in his own way. It was from Plato's 
school that the Jews took the idea of the trinity ; and it is 
from those Jews that you have taken it. I am sorry; but I 
cannot help showing that your trinity does not belong to 
you. 

The Christian priests have reason enough to be alarmed 
at inquiry into their system of religion ; for most certainly 
it is, like a harlequin's coat, made up of pieces, the differ- 
ent shades of which shock the eye, as the whole assemblage 
offends the reason. 

Reason ! — pardon me if I have introduced this word in 
the wrong place. I know that, in order to believe properly, 
it is necessary tO renounce one's reason ; and so, in becoming 
Christians, we must become idiots. This is droll, certainly ; 
but, since it is necessary, why, I will humiliate my reason 
a while : and my doing so will be of little consequence, since 
it is only Christians that I am going to oppose. I miike 
myself merry over every thing. I do not go deep enough 
into any thing to become obscure, as that would only fatigue 
me, and weary the reader. I leave profundity and nonsense 
to you. I shall merely run, with my alarm-bell in my hand, 
across your contradictions and silly ravings ; but, though 
running and laughing, I shall try to be methodical. 

Well, then, my Christian friends, you despise the pagans; 
and I approve of your conduct. Cato, Titus, Antonius, 
Seneca, and the rest of them, were but wags. The sages of 
Greece, their ancestors, those of Chaldea, of Egypt, and of 
Judea, more ancient still, were no better : so let them be 
damned, after your own fashion. Nevertheless, let us see, 
in the mean time, what patches of your harlequin's coat you 
have not disdained to take from them. I am much afraid, 
that, when all these are taken away, there will be but little 
left ; but, at all events, you will make good use of that little. 

Let us commence with Moses, the type par excellence of 
both the Jewish and Christian religion. 

The ancient poets made the first Bacchus to be born in. 



148 AN EYE-OPENER. 

Egypt ; and it is there that Moses is said to have been born. 
Bacchus is said to have been exposed on the Nile ; so was 
Moses. Bacchus is brought up upon a mountain in Arabia, 
named Nisa ; Moses sojourned some time upon a mountain of 
Arabia, named Sinai. A goddess commanded Bacchus to 
destroy a barbarous nation ; Moses received the same mission 
from the Lord. Bacchus passed the Red Sea dry footed ; so 
did Moses. The river Orontes suspended its course in favor 
of Bacchus, the same as the Jordan did in favor of Joshua. 
Bacchus commanded the sun to stand still ; Joshua performed 
the same prodigy. Two luminous rays came out of the head 
of Bacchus; and they are represented as coming out of that 
of Moses also. These rays are by some taken for horns. Bac- 
chus made a fountain of wine to spring out of the earth by 
striking it with his wand ; and Moses made the water to flow 
from a rock, by striking it with his staff. 

You must agree, then, reverend fathers in God, that the 
resemhlance is strong ; and you can not deny, if you have 
read, that the first Bacchus was long anterior to Moses. Let 
us now pass to the creation. 

You must admit, then, unless you willfully close your ears, 
that the six days of the creation are the six times of the 
Phoenicians, the Chaldeans, and the Indians, called the six 
Grambahars by Zoroaster, and which were so celebrated 
among the Persians. Your Adam is the Adino of the Ezour- 
veidam ; your earthly paradise is the garden of Eden at 
Saana, in Arabia Felix. The garden of the Hesperides was 
guarded by a winged dragon : your terrestrial paradise was 
guarded by a cherubim. 

The god of the Indians, having created man, gave him a 
drug, which was to insure him eternal health. The man put 
the drug upon his ass. The ass was thirsty. The serpent di- 
rected him to a fountain, and, while he drank, stole the drug. 
It was also a serpent that tempted Eve, who spoke to her, and 
caused the fall of the first man. . 

You have a deluge, and so have the ancients. You have 
Noah and his family saved ; they had Deucalion and Pyrrha 
saved. Abraham sacrificing his son, Jephtha immolating his 
daughter, are but copies of Idomeneus and Agamemnon, 

Madam Potiphar, enamored of Joseph, who resists her, is 



LETTER TO THE CLERGY. 149 

only an imitation of Pliaedrus and Hippolitus, of Bellerophon 
and Stenobius. 

Hercules purges the earth of the brigands who had deso- 
lated it ; he delivers Alceste from hell ; he begat in one 
night fifty children to fifty virgins, — prodigies worthy of 
mention. 

The Jewish Hercules, Samson, killed with the jaw-bone 
of an ass a thousand Philistines ; he caught three hundred 
foxes as he would have done so many pigeons ; he tied fire 
to their tails, and drove them into the fields of the Philis- 
tines. This was little; this was very mean. 

Tereras had golden hair, and Nisus purple hair, upon 
which depended their lives and the health of the empire. 
You make Samson's strength also depend upon his locks. 

Hercules comes, at last, to spin at the feet of Omphale. 
Samson is weak enough to discover his secret to Delilah ; 
and this agreement, in their ends, proves that Samson is but 
a second edition of Hercules. 

In spite of his angry fits, his fantasies, and his little acts 
of injustice, the Lord had always some favorites, some good 
children, upon whom he loved to repose his aff'ections. 

In this way he cherished Adam for a day or two. 

After Adam, God loved Noah, the prince of drunkards. 

After Noah, Abraham became his favorite, in spite of his 
idolatry, which the Lord said he detested. Without doubt, 
this idolatry was full of virtue ; for God made him chief of 
the patriarchs. He was quite as virtuous, I dare say, as his 
descendants ; of whose doings I intend to give a few speci- 
mens. 

After Abraham had quitted the flowery banks of the Eu- 
phrates, to go to the unlucky country of Shechem, in Pales- 
tine, he traversed the deserts for an immense time, to no pur- 
pose that I can see. Oh, says some one, God wished him to 
see the land promised to his descendants! Abraham might 
have shrugged up his shoulders at the prospects of his chil- 
dren. * 

They were hardly come to the country of Shechem before 
a famine drove them out again. The Lord has always some 
trick to serve his friends. As the manna was not yet in- 
yented, Abraham went into Egypt for bread, ^r- a journey 



150 AN EYE-OPENER. 

easily performed, when we reflect tliat it is only about two 
hundred leagues from Shechem to Memphis ; but Abraham 
was nimble yet, being only about one hundred and forty 
years old ! 

He took with him his wife Sarah, a pretty, little, seducing 
brunette, who was not more than sixty-five years old. The 
finger of the Lord is evident everywhere. Abraham resolved 
to make the best of his wife's charms ; and he therefore said 
to her, " Pretend to he my sister, and then I shall obtain some 
favors hy your means.'' One would imagine, from this nice 
bit of advice, that all our priests had descended in a direct 
line from Abraham. 

The king became amorous of young Sarah ; and there is 
no doubt, though we are not told so, that his advances were 
not repelled : since we find that she gives her brother plenty 
of sheep, oxen, asses, goats, and servants, and thus fairly 
earns the right to be considered a patroness of all females of 
easy virtue, born and to be born, who have accommodating 
husbands. 

The Lord, being well pleased with matters so far, was wil- 
ling to make a particular alliance with Abraham, and in sign 
of which he ordered him to cut off the foreskin, or circum- 
cise himself; truly the Lord has very original ideas. 

Sarah, remembering the pleasure which her husband had 
so obligingly procured for her in Egypt, one day brought to 
his bed her pretty servant Hagar ; and the man of Grod found, 
that, though the variety might be pleasing, yet it produced 
consequences little to be wished for. 

Hagar now became saucy, as servants will who are favored 
with the caresses of their masters. Sarah chastised her 
severely ; but this did not prevent her giving birth to Ish- 
mael, whose descendants have troubled the Church ever 
since. 

The Lord being afraid, that, if Hagar gave birth to another 
son, he should have no Church at all, determined to have a 
son born of Sarah, who should be chief. The little darling 
was only 7iinety years old, and her husband one hundred and 
sixty, when the birth of Isaac was announced to them. 

Sarah could not help laughing at this promise ; but truly I 
do not see why she should, if, as the commentators assure us, 



LETTER TO THE CLERGY. 151 

the years spoken of were shorter than ours. But it is evident 
from this that the commentators do not know what they say ; 
for why should Sarah laugh, unless the promise of the Lord 
had something in it unnatural ? 

Abraham, who had done pretty well by his journeys, again 
put himself in motion with his little Sarah, who always 
seems to remain young and pretty, and came to one of the 
most sterile deserts, where he found a king and doubtless a 
people, though Genesis says nothing about them. 

Abraham did not fail to present his wife, as usual ; for the 
kings of those times seem to have been very accessible. 
This king also became enamored of Sarah, and gave to her 
brother many fine presents. Many husbands have pretty 
wives ; but it is not always easy to find such generous kings. 

The Lord, who afterwards complained bitterly about the 
Israelites sacrificing to Moloch, ordered Abraham, one day, to 
sacrifice his son to him. This, it is said, was to try him. 
Abraham should have said, " Grod condemns infanticide : he 
must therefore forget himself when he now commands it. 
Let us wait a while ; perhaps he will think better of it." But 
no : Abraham had been at court, and knew how to be a cour- 
tier. He hastened to take the little Isaac upon a mountain, 
and even loaded him with the wood for the sacrifice, which 
the Lord had not requested. But a practiced courtier always 
goes beyond the orders of his master. 

However, the Lord, though he had encouraged his people 
to massacre those who stood in their way, had some scruple 
about this sacrifice ; and it accordingly did not take place. 
He saw that Abraham was but a fool; and he left him to die 
soon after. 

I remember seeing, not forty years since, a picture repre- 
senting this sacrifice, in which the painter had represented 
Abraham armed with a musket, which he was presenting. 
An angel in the clouds discharged urine into the pan, and so 
made it miss fire. This painter should have illustrated the 
whole Bible, he had such droll ideas. 

We find that Isaac afterwards pursued the same course as 
his father. He took his wife Bebecca into the desert of 
Gerar, where there was a king, as there generally is in a des- 
ert. His majesty became enamored of her; and Isaac, of 



152 AN EYE-OPENER. 

course, directed her to say that she was his sister, as his 
father had done before him. He probably thought it was 
less shameful to prostitute his sister than his wife. 

You have imitated the ancients even in their infamies. 

Plutarch and Pindar both tell us, that it was the custom to 
present females to the sacred he-goats. And the Jews, under 
Jeroboam, had priests for the service of the same animals, 
with whom, no doubt, the Jewish ladies were much enam- 
ored : since in Leviticus, chapter xviL verse 7, they are for- 
bidden to sacrifice to those with whom they had fornicated ; 
thus seeming to permit it with others, — a thing, by the by, 
not at all agreeable to the law of Moses, as laid down in 
chapter xx. verses 15, 16; where the death, both of the of- 
fender and the animal, is insisted on. 

In spite of Leviticus, however, certain Christian shep- 
herds of the Alps still make a practice of espousing their 
goats. 

Elias, and his chariot of fire with flaming horses, strongly 
resembles Apollo conducting his coursers, to whom Aurora, 
with her rosy fingers, opens the gates of the east. All the 
difference is, that the pagan image is the most laughable. 

" Arrange as you best can with the Jews," methinks I hear 
you say : " I do not hold to their books, only so far as they 
support m^r own." — " But, my dear sir, both the Jews and 
Christians derive their religion from the same source." — 
'' What is that you say, sir ? " — " Yes, sir, it is of no use, 
your frowning : what I say is the truth." 

Foh, of the Chinese, was born of a virgin, impregnated by 
a ray of the sun ; and Christ is born of a virgin impregnated 
by the Holy Ghost. 

Zaca, Brama, Samonocodon, were all incarnate. Yishnoo 
was incarnate five hundred times ; while Christ is only incar- 
nate once. This is rather seldom, certainly. 



SCEIPTURE NAREATIVE8. 



THE TETE-A-TETE WITH SATAN. — Matt. iv. 



1. At one time during tlie earthly pilgrimage of him who 
dwelleth not in temples made with hands, not of man's build- 
ing, but eternal in the heavens, he was led up by the spirit 
(whether the spirit of evil or good we are not told, and we 
can only guess from the result) into the wilderness. 

2. When Grod the Son, who is everywhere present, had 
reached this barren spot, he got no food for forty days and 
forty nights ; and, after dieting so long on ethereal food, al- 
though his meat was to do the will of him that sent him, he 
wanted something more substantial. 

3:* " The God of this world," i. e., the devil, who is always 
on the watch for mischief, thought he would try what he 
could do with Grod ; having succeeded so well in marring his 
work, he thought he might succeed with the worker. 

4. When the devil made his appearance, he told God to 
make the stones into bread ; ' but God told the devil that 
man should not live by bread alone, but by every word which 
proceedeth out of his (God's) mouth. 

5. His Satanic majesty then took his infinite charge into 
Jerusalem, and set him on a sharp point on the top of the 
temple, and commanded him to cast himself down, reminding 
him that the angels had charge of him, lest he should hurt 
his foot with the stones. 

6. Again they climb a mountain together, — it was a very 
high one, so high that the devil showed God all the king- 
doms of this globular world at one view; and he pointed out 
the glory of them, and offered to give them up to the Maker 
of ail if he would fall down and worship him. 

153 



154 AN EYE-OPENEE. 

7. But Grod told tlie devil to get off; for, says he, it is 
written, '■'■ Thou shalt worship the Lord thy G-od, and him 
only shalt thou serve." 

Had this incident been reversed, and Grod had taken the 
devil about after this fashion, and so have wrought upon his 
benevolence, forgiving his past transgressions on condition 
of worship, it would have appeared, to our finite minds, a 
little more rational ; inasmuch as it would have been in ac- 
cordance with the " prevention better than cure " principle. 
It would have given Satan a chance of repentance, saved the 
cruel sufferings and death of God, and kept many millions 
of human beings ^out of hell. Infinite wisdom may see the 
propriety of temptation, inculcated by example, in submitting 
himself to the devil ; else we, unassisted by revelation, should 
be ready to say, " Lead us not into temptation/' And, again, 
it seems rather strange that Deity should require angels to 
bear him up ; for we don't see how an immaterial being could 
be hurt by stones, unless they were of the kind used by the 
devil in his early battles. We, ourselves, being made in the 
image of G-od, have tried an experiment, but have not yet 
succeeded in finding out the optical law by which to get a 
view of the whole of a round ball at once : but we can not for 
a moment doubt the truth of the expression ; and we mean to 
try it again. 

If the devil has the power to lead about Deity, as we 
would a child, by the hand, and to set him upon a post, to 
converse with and tempt him, we need not be surprised that 
there is so much mischief in society ) nor that his infernal 
majesty, after an unsuccessful effort, especially if, like his 
traveling companion, he be subject to such long fasts, should, 
when hungry, go about as " a roaring lion, seeking whom he 
may devour." We see here, that he wanted bread, and was 
refused ; and we suppose the rich and powerful of the present 
day, considering all the poor and miserable as " poor devils," 
act upon the example. Neither would our proud spirits 
have refused the worship of a minute to secure the reign of 
benevolence on earth. 

ABRAHAM. — Gen. xii. 1. 

Brahma of the Hindoos, Ab-ram of the Persians, Ibrahim 
of the Mahometans, and Abraham of the Jews, form each a 



SCRIPTURE NARRATIVES. 155 

principle character in their respective mythologies. But the 
history of the Jewish Abraham is the most singular of the 
four. 

Gen. xii. 1, Grod says to Abraham, " Gret thee out of 
thy country, and from thy kindred, unto a land that I will 
show thee j " and verse 3, " I will bless them that bless. thee, 
and curse them that curse thee." If this account of God 
be correct, how can Christians assert that he is a God of 
love and kindness, when it would appear, from the Holy 
Book, that he is in the habit of cursing and swearing. Surely 
it would be improper for us to imitate such an example, even 
though we are told to be '' holy as God is holy." Abraham 
was seventy-five years old when he and his wife left Haran ; 
and, coming near to Egypt, he addresses her : " Sally, I 
know that thou art fair to look upon ; and, when the Egyp- 
tians see thee, they will say. This is his wife. Say, I pray thee, 
thou art my sister; and my soul shall live because of thee." 

At this time, Sally Abraham was only sixty-five years of 
age, and so beautiful that the Egyptians became enamored 
0.^ her. The young princes praised her to King Pharaoh ; 
and, so pleased was he with old Sally, that he gave Abraham 
sheep and oxen, and he-asses and she-asses, and men-ser- 
vants, and women-servants, and camels; so that Abraham, 
the poor wandering outcast, became, through the beauty of 
his wife, a rich farmer. 

Chapter xiii. v. 2, tells us that Abraham was rich in cattle, 
in silver, and in gold. This was one of the advantages of a 
pretty wife in olden times. We are afraid they are not so 
profitable now. In verse 11, we have another specimen of 
Abraham's luck. The Lord says, " Lift up thine eyes now, 
and look northward and southward, and eastward and west- 
ward ; and all the land which thou seest will I give to thee 
and to thy seed for ever. And I will make thy seed as the 
dust of the earth ; so that if a man can number the dust of 
the earth, then shall thy seed be numbered. 

In chapter xv. v. 13, the Lord in a second oath promises 
him and his seed all the land from the river of Egypt to 
the River Euphrates. Surely, if God had ever promised 
these things, they would have been fulfilled Yet is it not 
strange that God should promise such an extent of country, 



b 



156 AN EYE-OPENER. 

which we know they never did and probably never will pos- 
sess ? Or how could he promise that his seed should be 
numerous as the dust of the earth, while even at this day 
they do not number a million on the face of the earth ? And 
they have always regarded marriage, the fulfillment of the 
command to " increase and multiply,'' as a sacred obliga- 
tion. 

Chapter xiv. — Farmer Abraham turns warrior ; and, with 
318 keepers of sheep and oxen, he obtains victories over the 
kings of Persia, Pontus, and Babylon, and chases them 
above a hundred miles. Such victories are perhaps not im- 
possible ; for we have other instances of those heroic times, 
when the arm of Grod was not shortened. Gideon, with 300 
men and 300 pitchers and 300 lamps, defeated a whole 
army; and Samson slew a thousand Philistines with the 
jaw-bone of an ass. The history of Abraham is very won- 
derful ; and these actions seem to have secured the favor of 
God, And we are not surprised at it ; for we know, on the 
authority of the Bible, that " the Lord is a man of war,'' 
and would therefore commend such bravery. 

Chapter xviii. — We find our hero entertaining three 
angels ; he fetches them water to wash their feet, and a 
morsel of bread to comfort their hearts. He runs for a calf, 
dresses, and cooks it, and with butter and milk sets it before 
them ; and they did eat. When these spiritual visitors had 
satisfied themselves with fleshly food, they inquired about 
Sarah, and told Abraham that she would have a child. Sarah 
overheard the conversation, and laughed outright at the idea 
of a lady of ninety being in the way that women wish to be. 
The Lord, however, did not like being laughed at; and he 
brought a charge against Sarah : but she denied it to his 
face. How wicked it was of old Sally Abraham to deny, in 
the face of Omnipotence himself, that she had laughed at 
the idea of being enciente. Don't suppose, reader, that there 
was any impossibility here ; for, at the age of ninety-four, 
traveling southward, Sarah captivates king Abimelech; and 
again the lie is resorted to, that she is Abraham's sister ; 
and her virtue is sold for sheep and oxen, and men-servants 
and women-servants. 

It is a strange feature in Abraham's history, that, after 



THE MYSTICAL CRAFT. 157 

God had blessed his old age with a son, he should order his 
murder. We should shudder at the bare recital of such an 
occurrence now; but the sacrifice of human victims was 
common to the Jews. Jephtha killed his daughter. 

If we are to consider these stories as natural, our under- 
standing must change ; or we must regard every trait in the 
life of Abraham as a miracle, under the special guidance of 
a Grod " who hides himself," and " whose ways are past find- 
ing out." 



THE MYSTICAL CRAFT, 



The most crafty of all crafts, and the most delusive of all 
delusions, as exemplified by our modern missionaries, and 
others engaged in the great measures for proselyting the 
world, and for hastening on the glorious millennium of 
ecclesiastical supremacy in this our favored land of liberty. 

Hail, mystical craft ! to the vulgar unknown. 

Sublime the profession 

That gives you possession 
Of other men's minds, which you rule with your own. 

Can mortals refuse you the missions of love ? 

Their aid will be lent 

To those heaven sent : 
They '11 sanction with dollars what comes from above. 

AH hail the bright honors you gain from the trade ! 

Though some unbelievers 

May call you deceivers, 
The faithful afford you their bountiful aid. 

Ye pious young heroes, abandon your toil 

In workshops and fields ; 

For soul-saving yields 
More fruit to the righteous than tilling the soil. 

You'll proselyte all by your God-granted power. 

The Sunday-school drill 

Your legions will fill, 
And form a great army of saints for the war. 



158 AN EYE-OPENER. 

Divinities, colleges, now may be seen, 

Where preachers are made, 

Who know well their trade, 
Produced most as fast as cut-nails by machine.* 

The Jesuits failed in their mystical plan : 

Their places you '11 fill. 

Improve on their skill, 
And treasures obtain from the far distant lands. 

Your doctrines will make the barbarians quake. 

Each herald of Zion, 

As bold as a lion, 
Can tell them what blood has been shed for its sake. 

You'll show the poor heathen where wisdom belongs. 

They '11 soon understand 

Your system so grand, 
And gain inspiration from Solomon's Songs. 

You'll visit all people, now grossly mistaken. 

The Hindoos you'll leach 

The right way to preach ; 
Teach Turks to wear hats, and the Jews to eat bacon. 

The Indian and Tartar with you will agree. 

You '11 teach the Grand Lama, 

And subjects of Brahma, 
That three are but one, and that ona is just three.f, 

You'll make distant nations to virtue aspire. 

As you fondly sing 

Of David, God's king, 
And mention his deeds, and the late of Uriah. 

Teach the people the book of Ezekiel to read. 

The language, so chaste, 

Will soon be embraced, 
And luster impart to your craft and your creed. 

* Should not the holy belligerents of the different sects destroy each 
other's influence with their fights about faith, forms, and creeds, we may 
reasonably conclude, from the groat increase of the clerical order, that our 
Union, extensive as it is, will not be found sufficiently expansive for the 
field of their operations. Hence the mis'=;ionary cause "may serve as a kind 
of safety-valve for the great engines of theology now in operation. 

t In this remarkable age of discoveries, some presumptuous individuals 
have had the boldness to declare, that they have ascertained beyond a doubt 
that one is not equal to three, and that three are actually more than one; 
and that consequently the doctrine of the trinity, that requires us to be- 
lieve in three separate divinities of equal power and glory, and, at the same 
time, to acknowledge but one divine ruler, is a fallacy, though sanctioned by 
infallible popes, learned bishops, and thousands of gi'ave doctors of divinity 
for several centuries. 



THE MYSTICAL CRAFT. 159 

You'll cause the Chinese to comply with your plan. 

The Malays you '11 change 

From notions quite strange, 
And give the true faith to the Isles of Japan. 

The kings and the people in regions afar 

May drink of your wine, 

Have bread made oivine. 
And learn many things they ne'er heard of before. 

You'll tell them of ancient performances, when 

A serpent could utter 

Soft words, and not stutter, 
And asses could speak in the language of men. 

You'll mention God's anger, and Noah's great flood : 

How Egypt was curs'd, — 

Lice made of its dust; 
And all its great waters were turned into blood.* 

* We are told that the fishes all died in consequence of the water having 
been turned into blood. Here is certainly one miracle less than if they had 
lived. But, as the fish were destroyed, the frogs were created to torment the 
people; and, in addition to this, fire and hail, mingled together, was show- 
ered down upon them; and darkness that could be felt was spread around 
the land. These and other plagues were sent to distress the Egyptians, 
because the Lord had hardened the heart of their king, that he might 
oppress the people. 

We find that most of the miracles performed by the Hebrew lawgiver 
were likewise performed by the magicians of Egypt. All the waters of that 
country must have been twice turned into blood; for, while the blood con- 
tinued through the first miracle, the magicians had no water to operate 
upon with their enchantment. They must have waited till it again flowed 
in the rivers. If the magicians could turn water into blood, and create frogs 
and flies, from whence did they receive the power? Some of the Egyptian 
darkness still rests upon this subject. See Ex. vii., v. 22; viii., v. 7, 18. 

If people would overcome their preconceived opinions, and dispense with 
their early prejudices, and examine candidly the transactions recorded in 
our saci-ed books, they would, in eleven cases' out of a dozen, conclude, with 
the celebrated Dr. Strauss, that divine things could not have been thus per- 
formed, or that the things performed could not have been divine. 



JOHN CALVIN. 



Calvin's life is too well known in this country to require 
here any regular history of the man, or detail of his con- 
duct; but we are amused with the reminiscences of the 
fanaticism attached both to Calvin and the age in which he 
lived. For instance, the government of Greneva enforced all 
the fanatic's hateful precepts. In one case, a man was put 
in the pillory for playing at cards, not for money, but for 
amusement. In another, — 

" A married lady, having gone out last Sunday wearing her 
hair in longer curls than is becoming, which is a bad exam- 
ple, and contrary to what is taught by preachers of the gos- 
pel, it is ordered that she be committed to prison, together 
with her two attendants, and the person who dressed her 
hair." 

Calvin's severities had brought him to the following con- 
dition : — 

" He resembles an old hermit of the Thebaid, emaciated 
by long vigils and fasting : his cheeks are sunken, his fore- 
head furrowed, his face colorless as that of a corpse ; but his 
brilliant eyes glow with an unearthly fire. His figure is 
slightly bowed : the bones seem bursting through his skin ; 
but his step is steady, and his tread firm." 

The marriageists and the non-marriageists were then at 
daggers drawn, the Catholic clergy being all for celibacy, 
and, as their adversaries said, for concubinage : whilst the 
Protestant clergy, out of spite, and in a spirit of opposition, 
were all for matrimony ; and those who did not want a wife, 
for love or money, would have one, to show their gospel 
hatred of the opposite church. Here is Calvin's circular 
letter to his friends and adherents, desiring them to choose 
him a helpmate : — 

" I care not for personal charms. The only beauty which 
160 



JOHN CALVIN. 161 

delights me is, that she should be chaste, economical, obedi- 
ent, patient, and that there should be a reasonable hope of 
her being attentive to the care of my health." 

At last, the fanatic married a widow with a large family; 
and Calvin, as might have been supposed, did not find her 
as prolific as she had been with her former lord and master. 
She had but one child by him, and that was still-born. Hav- 
ing established his church under the name of Presbyteries, 
Calvin imposed upon the elders the following ridiculous 
oath : — 

" I swear, according to the charge giyen me, to watch over 
all scandals, to hinder all idolatries, blasphemies, and misde- 
meanors which are contrary to the honor of God and the re- 
formed order of the evangelical church. When I discover 
any thing which ought to be reported to the consistory, I 
will do my duty without hate, favor, or afiection, solely to 
maintain the Church in good order and in the fear of the 
Lord." 

As to his clergy, he put forth the following monstrous pre- 
tensions : — 

" The minister is the most magnificent image of the Deity, 
when he walks by the light of the eternal word. Let others 
glory in their power : he is superior to that of all earthly 
dominations. His mission is to make every living thing 
bend beneath the yoke of the word -, he brings down the 
mighty from their seat, and exalts the humble and meek. 
It is his part to extend the kingdom of Grod, and beat down 
Satan under his feet ; to feed the flock, to chase away the 
wolves, to teach the docile, to chastise the incredulous, and, 
if it be necessary, to call down lightning from heaven, and 
launch the thunderbolt in the name of Jehovah. The min- 
ister or pastor is as necessary to Christian society as light or 
heat to the physical world." 

This Calvin, like all fanatics, was a dreadful inflicter of 
torture. He pretended to take, or did take, the Levitical 
law as his authority ; and, in revising the law of Geneva, he 
enacted, that adulterous wives were to be drowned, thrown 
naked in the lake, without condescending to inquire into 
any palliating circumstances. Confessions of adultery were 
extorted by the rack ; and one man having, under torture, 
11 



162 AN EYE-OPENER. 

confessed adultery, whicli lie probably never Committed, was 
sentenced to be flogged tbrough the city, and kept in chains 
for ten years.* Calvin sentenced a child to be hanged for 
cursing its parents ; another child to be publicly whipped 
for calling her mother a she-devil. After innumerable cases 
of insane cruelty, we come to those of burning old women 
alive as witches. These infamies, which are little noticed in 
the life of this cruel maniac, give place to the more promi- 
nent crime of Calvin, in burning Servetus. This Servetus 
chose to enter into a controversy with Calvin ; and the latter, 
being thoroughly unable to refute his antagonist by argu- 
ment, assumed the old, well-established, and often-practiced 
right, of burning his adversary alive. This story is suffi- 
ciently well known. Calvin, to support his speculative opin- 
ions, most of them thoroughly absurd and destructive of 
virtue and happiness, cared not whom he executed or how 
many he tortured. His maxim seems to have been, " The 
more numerous the victims, the more certain the truth." He 
has left about five thousand sermons behind him; and they 
display a mind terribly ferocious. He dwells perpetually on 
every part of the Bible that relates to severe punishment and 
violent death. He revels in hewing Agag to pieces, on the 
massacre of the Canaanites, and the massacre of the priests 
of Baal by Elijah. We are glad to say, that this cruel and 
vindictive monster has outlived his fame, even in Geneva it- 
self; for it is not more than six years ago that a scheme was 
got up in Geneva to erect a monument to his memory ■ and 
even the clergy themselves repudiated his doctrines with 
something like abhorrence. We have no hesitation in say- 
ing, that, ere five years have passed, a new book will be 
gotten up, most benevolently and beneficially for the middle 
and lower classes, exposing the follies and dreadful cruelties 
to be found in the writings of the fathers of the Church, and 
of the fanatics of more modern authority. 

* The first Christian Emperor made a law by which seduction was pun- 
ished with death. If the female pleaded her own consent, she also was 
punished with death. If the parents endeavored to screen the criminals, 
they also were banished, and their estates confiscated. The slaves who 
might be accessory, were burned alive, or forced to swallow melted lead. 
The very ofi'spring of an illegal love were involved in the consequences of 
the sentence. — Gibbon's Decline and Fall, ^c, vol. ii., p. 210. See also 
the hatred of the primitive Christians to love, and even marriage, page 269. 



JOHN CALVIN. , 163 



MICHAEL SERVETXJS. 



" There is a spot, at a short distance from this city, which 
affords interesting and melancholy reflections, and serves to 
make universally applicable, and to take away all exceptions 
from, an observation of a Greek and a soldier, which, in the 
fourth century at least, was extensively applicable. The 
pagan historian, Amianus Marcellinus, says, " No wild beasts 
are such enemies to man as the greater part of Christians are 
deadly to one another." I mean the spot where the unfortu- 
nate Spanish physician, Michael Servetus, was burned alive on 
the 27th of October, in the year 1553, by the stupid and 
bigoted magistrates of Geneva, and that celebrated reformer 
and brutal monster, John Calvin. For the purpose of demon- 
strating how far the folly and wickedness of men have gone, 
,and to deter us from being brought back to the same state 
of degradation in which the human mind then was, and to 
which many labor most assiduously to reduce it, it would be 
desirable to rescue from forgetfulness the history of this 
tragedy, ,and to show what were the articles of accusation 
against this learned person, who, it is said, half discovered the 
circulation of the blood ; that is, he found that the whole 
mass of blood cii-culated through the lungs. The charges 
were not confined to his anti-trinitarian notions ; but some of 
them were most extraordinary. He had said, in his preface 
to his edition of Ptolemy's Geography, that ' Judea had been 
falsely cried up for beauty, richness, and fertility; since those 
who have traveled in it have found it poor, barren, and ut- 
terly devoid of pleasantness.' They accused him, therefore, 
of contradicting Moses, who has described that country as a 
land flowing with milk and honey, the glory of all lands. 
Would the furious Calvin have burnt a traveler who had in- 
cautiously published that he had found the brook Kedron 
was neither of honey, nor of milk, but of water ? " — Travels 
of Thomas Jefferson Hogg, 



THE PASSAGE IN JOSEPHUS. 



Before this vvork went to press, the compiler submitted a 
portion of the manuscript to a Methodist clergyman for in- 
spection. The remarks in relation to the disputed passage 
in Josephus attracted his attention. I remarked to him that 
a strict observer would at once, on reading the passage, dis- 
cover the fraud; but, said I, the proof of its interpolation I 
get from Christian writers, naming the Rev. Dr. Lardner. 
He informed me that he was familiar with Dr. Lardner's 
works, and that he had nowhere in his works intimated that 
the passage was a fraud. He said that it was an infidel lie. 
The last remark I attributed to his Christian education. I 
have since examined the works of the Rev. Dr. Lardner, con- 
taining the authority referred to. I shall send him a copy 
of this work for his benefit. 

In regard to the disputed passage in Josephus, Dr. Lardner 
maintains that it is an interpolation, and '" ought, therefore, 
to be for ever discarded from any place among the evidences 
of Christianity." * Dr. Lardner's arguments against the pas- 
sage, in his own words, are these : — 

1. " I do not perceive that we at all want the suspected 
testimony to Jesus, which was never quoted by any of our 
Christian ancestors before Eusebius.f 

2. " Nor do I recollect that Josephus has anywhere men- 
tioned the name or word Christ in any of his works, except 
the testimony above mentioned and the passage concerning 
James, the Lord's brother. J 

3. "It interrupts the narrative. 

4. " The language is quite Christian. 

5. " It is not quoted by Chrysostom,§ though he often re- 

* Life of Dr. Lardner, by Dr. Kippis, p. 23. 

t His answer to Dr. Chandler. J Ibid. 

§ John, Bishop of Constantinople, who died A. D. 407, was called St. 
Chrysostom, or golden-mouthed, from the eharms of his eloquence; the 
author of the last prayer in our liturgy. 
164 



Wesley's letter. 165 

fers to Josephus, and could not have omitted quoting it, had 
it been then in the text. 

6. "It is not quoted by Photius, though he has three 
articles concerning Josephus. 

7. " Under the article, ' Justice of Tiberias,' this author 
(Photius) expressly states that this historian (Josephus), 
being a Jew, has not taken the least notice of Christ. 

8. " Neither Justin, in his dialogue with Trypho the Jew, 
nor Clemens Alexandrinus, who made so many extracts from 
ancient authors, nor Origen against Celsus, have ever men- 
tioned the testimony. 

9. "But, on the contrary, in chapter xxxv. of the first 
book of that work, Origen openly affirms that Josephus, who 
had mentioned John the Baptist, did not acknowledge 
Christ.'^ 



WESLEY'S LETTEE. 

[Published in Hetherington's Trial.] 
From the Life of the Rev. John Wesley, published in 1792. 



Dear Sir, — For your obliging letter, which I received 
this morning, I return you thanks. 

Our opinions, for the most part, perfectly coincide re- 
specting the stability of the connection after my head is laid 
in the dust. This, however, is a subject about which I am 
not so anxious as you seem to imagine ; on the contrary, it is 
a matter of the utmost indifference to me, as I have long 
foreseen that a division must necessarily ensue, from causes 
so various, unavoidable, and certain, that I have long since 
given up a^ thoughts and hopes of settling it on a perma- 
nent foundation. You do not seem to be aware of the most 
effective cause that will bring about a division. You appre- 
hend the most serious consequences from a struggle between 
the preachers for power and pre-eminence, and there being 
none among them of sufficient authority or abilities to sup- 



166 AN EYE-OPENER. 

port the dignity, or command the respect, and exact the im- 
plicit obedience, which is so necessary to uphold our consti- 
tution on its present principles. This, most undoubtedly, 
is one thing that will operate very powerfully against unity 
in the connection, and is, perhaps, what I might possibly 
have prevented, had not a still greater difficulty arisen in my 
mind. I have often wished for some person of abilities to 
succeed me as the head of the church I have, with such in- 
defatigable pains and astonishing success, established; but, 
convinced that none but very superior abilities would be 
equal to the undertaking, were I to adopt a successor of this 
description, I fear he might gain so much influence among 
the people as to usurp a share, if not the whole, of that abso- 
lute and uncontrollable power which I have hitherto, and am 
determined I will, maintain so long as I live. Never will I 
bear a rival near my throne. You, no doubt, see the policy 
of continually changing the preachers from one circuit to 
another at short periods ; for, should any of them become 
popular with their different congregations, and insinuate them- 
selves into the favor of their hearers, they might possibly 
obtain such influence as to establish themselves independent 
of me and the general connection. Besides, the novelty of 
the continual change excites curiosity, and is the more neces- 
sary, as few of our preachers have abilities to render them- 
selves in any degree tolerable any longer than they are now. 
The principle cause which will inevitably effect a dimi- 
nution and division in the connection after my death will be 
the failure of subscriptions and contributions toward the 
support of the cause ; for money is as much the sinews of 
religious as of military power. If it is of the greatest diffi- 
culty that even I can keep them together . for want of this 
very necessary article, I think no one else can. Another 
cause which, with others, will effect the division, is the dis- 
putes and 'contention that will arise between the preachers 
and the parties that will espouse their several causes ; by 
which means, much truth will be brought to light, which will 
reflect so much to their disadvantage, that the eyes of the 
people will be open to see their motives and principles : nor 
will they any longer contribute to their support, when they 
find all their pretensions to sanctity and love are founded on 



Wesley's letter. 167 

motives of interest and ambition. The consequence of which 
will be, a few of the most popular will establish themselves 
in the respective places where they have gained sufficient 
influence over the minds of the people. The rest must 
revert to their original humble callings. But this no way 
concerns me, I have attained the object of my views by es- 
tablishing a name that will not soon perish from the face of 
the earth. I have founded a sect which will boast my name 
long after my disciplines and doctrines are forgotten. 

My character and reputation for sanctity are now beyond 
the reach of calumny ; nor will any thing that may hereafter 
come to light, or be said concerning me to my prejudice, 
however true, gain credit. 

Another cause that will operate more powerfully and 
effectually than any of the preceding is, the rays of philoso- 
phy which begin now to pervade all ranks, rapidly dispelling 
the mists of ignorance which have been long, in a great de- 
gree, the mother of devotion, of slavish prejudice, and the 
enthusiastic bigotry of religious opinions. The decline of 
the papal power is owing to the same irresistible cause ; nor 
can it be supposed that Methodism can stand its ground 
when brought to the test of truth, reason, and philosophy. 

City Road, Thursday Morning. J. W. 



We copied this letter from a pamphlet entitled, " A Full 
Report of the Trial of Henry Hetherington.'' Court of 
Queen's Bench, Dec. 8, 1840. Sittings at Nisi Prms at 
Westchester, before Lord Denman and a Middlesex Special 
Jury. Prosecution for Blasphemy. The Queen vs. Hether- 
ington. 

We think this letter creditable to Mr. Wesley's discern- 
ment, and perfectly consonant with the principles of those 
who think religion a good thing for the lower orders, and 
who know that a religion of feelings is easily played off on the 
ignorant, who are thus made dupes and slaves. Wesley, with 
his character, learning, and management, could not have been 
a believer to the extent of his present followers ; for knowl- 
edge dispels superstition, as ignorance fosters it. 



168 AN EYE-OPENER. 

Tbe Methodists of Wesley's day were Spiritualists ; * and 
the Spiritualists of this day are Wesleyan Methodists, sharp- 
ened by conflict, and enlightened by a knowledge of the 
world, obtained by a transit in opinion, which has awakened 
new thoughts. The Spiritualists believe more than our mod- 
ern Methodists, and on better proof. For their additional 
belief, they bring stronger evidence than that on which 
Christianity is rec€ived, — living for dead witnesses. Their 
arguments are irresistible. You doubt certain points, and 
demand proof. They show that you already believe other 
similar points, and they ask you on. what evidence. If you 
reply, and inform them, they show you similar evidence and 
much stronger; and you must believe. In this manner, 
thousands of sincere believers in the old dogma have become 
defenders of Spiritualism ; and, in this defense, the characters 
of many have undergone a change for the better. The 
Spiritualists profess to be reformers ; and here their blows fall 
thick and heavy : for very different is every church from 
that of apostolic times. 

When silver and gold were poured into the lap of the 
pope, a cardinal remarked, " We can not say with the Church 
of old, ' Silver and gold have I none.' " — " No," said the 
pope; ^' nor can we say to the sick and lame, rise up, and 
walk." Every Christian church has risen in wealth and 
corruption ; has added to the ceremonies, and lost in purity 
and presumed power of primitive Christianity. The Spirit- 
ualists, then, affect primitive Cliristianity ; and, if they can 
get a hearing, the corrijptions of the Church are shown. 
Hence the unprecedented spread of modern Spiritualism ; 
and on them, as reformers, our hopes rest. 

* See Fletcher's account of spirit manifestations in Wesley's family. 



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